The Gospel of Law 




J. Stewart 









LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


UNITED STATES OF AMK&ICA. 





I 



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THE GOSPEL OF LAW 



A SERIES OF DISCOURSES 



FUNDAMENTAL CHURCH DOCTRINES 






S. J. STEWART 






291 . 



_OFWASHtN G 

BOSTON 

GEORGE II. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET 

1882 




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Copyright, 

1882, 

Bv GEORGE H. ELLIS. 



J 7^0 my friends in the Independent Congregational Society of 
Banggr, who have always encouraged me to an honest search 
after truth, and then with such loyalty and appreciation have sup- 
ported me in uttering my convictions, this volume is most affection- 
ately dedicated. 



PREFACE. 

The principal reason for a preface to this volume 
is in order to show the causes of its publication. 
The introduction and the first discourses of the series 
in this book were delivered to the audience that I 
address regularly on Sunday, without any expecta- 
tion that they would ever be published in a volume. 
Before the course was completed, however, a local 
demand came for their publication. Indeed, imme- 
diately after their delivery, three of the discourses — 
the two on " The Bible " and the one on " Morality " 
— were printed by others in a pamphlet form, and 
had a large local and provincial circulation. This 
volume is printed primarily, therefore, to satisfy a 
demand for this kind of thought in the city and 
State in which the discourses were originally given, 
and this will be the excuse for leaving them in the 
personal form in wliich they were delivered. 

The principal motive in the book is to apply the 
facts of science to inherited doctrines, and then to 
give a positive basis of belief and conduct in consis- 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 



tency with these facts, to interpret the results of the 
authorities, and bring them into a practical form 
and conclusion. History and criticism and science 
cannot be created by a teacher of the people ; but it 
is his province to use his reason in bringing their 
results and application. It would be only pedantic 
to refer in detail to authorities for the positions 
taken. Of course, no thoughtful man would dare to 
use as a basis for an argument anything but well- 
proved facts. There are differences of opinion even 
among scholars on many important questions, but no 
essential argument in this volume is based on any- 
thing that is not absolutely proved. Where there is 
any uncertainty, it is candidly stated. The book has 
been called by the name of the title-page, not only 
because the last discourse in the series properly bears 
that name, but because the attempt is made to test 
every subject positively by the scientific principle of 
universal law. Whatever gospel or "good news" 
there is grows out of natural law. 

Three sermons originally in the series — those on 
" Conversion," "Faith," and "The Church"— have 
been omitted from this volume, in order to bring it 
into reasonable size ; but no vital loss is thereby 
incurred. 

It may seem to some that, even if true, some things 



PREFACE. 5 

I have said had been better left unsaid. I cannot 
reply more appropriately than in the words of Emer- 
son : " Nor do I fear scepticism for any good soul. . . . 
I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not 
afraid of falling into my ink-pot. ... I see not why 
we should give ourselves such sanctified airs. If 
the Divine Providence has hid from men neither 
disease nor deformity, nor corrupt society, ... let 
us not be so nice that we cannot write down these 
facts coarsely as they stand, or doubt but there is a 
counter-statement as ponderous, which we can arrive 
at, and which, being put, will make all square." 

Bangor, Me., March 1, 1882. 



By accumulated experiences, the man of science acquires a 
thorough belief in the unchanging relations of phenomena, in the 
invariable connection of cause and consequence, in the necessity 
of good or evil results. Instead of the rewards and punishments 
of traditional belief, which men vaguely hope they may gain, or 
escape, spite of their disobedience, he finds that there are rewards 
and punishments in the ordained constitution of things, and that 
the evil results of disobedience are inevitable. He sees that the 
laws to which we must submit are not only inexorable, but benefi- 
cent. . . . Hence, he is led constantly to insist on these laws, and 
is indignant when men disregard them. And thus does he, by 
asserting the eternal principles of things and the necessity of con- 
forming to them, prove himself intrinsically religious. — Herbert 
Spencer. 

For it lies in the nature of progress that the heresy or new 
knowledge of yesterday is the orthodoxy or old knowledge of 
to-day; and that, to those who have learned to associate their 
aspirations with the old knowledge, it may well seem impossible 
that like aspirations should be associated with the new. But the 
experience of many ages of speculative revolution has shown that, 
while Knowledge grows and old beliefs fall away and creed suc- 
ceeds to creed, nevertheless that Faith which makes the inner- 
most essence of religion is indestructible. — John Fiskc. 

Out from the heart of nature rolled 

The burdens of the Bible old : 

The litanies of nations came, 

Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 

Up from the burning core below, — 

The canticles of love and woe. Emerson. 



O gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day! 
From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your 

chains, men say. 
New gods are crowned in the city, their flowers have broken your 

rods: 
They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate 

gods. Swinburne. 



And, for success, I ask no more than this, — 

To bear unflinching witness to the truth. 

All true, whole men succeed; for what is worth 

Success's name, unless it be the thought, 

The inward surety, to have carried out 

A noble purpose to a noble end, 

Although it be the gallows or the block ? . . . 

Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like 

A star new-born, that drops into its place, 

And which, once circling in its placid round, 

Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. Lowell. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. Introduction, 11 

II. The Bible : The Old Testament, 17 

III. The Bible : The Xew Testament, 45 

IV. Miracles, 74 

V. God, 98 

VI. Satan or the Devil 121 

VII. Sin and the Atonement, 142 

VIII. Hell and Salvation 160 

IX. Prayer, 180 

X. Morality, 200 

XL Jesus, 229 

XII. Predestination and Scientific Necessity, . . 258 

XIII. Immortality 276 

XTV". The Gospel of Law, 298 



INTRODUCTION. 



Today, I begin a series of discourses upon the theological 
doctrines generally accepted by the Church, using, as far as 
possible, the method of modern science and the facts furnished 
by the best scholarship. 

The necessity for such a course has been laid upon me in 
such a manner, and to such a degree, that I am compelled to 
obey. It must be evident to every thoughtful man that society 
is in a transition state in regard to religious beliefs. If there 
are some questions, however, which are not yet settled, there 
must be a possibility of rinding out what is the nearest truth. 
It is our duty to ascertain everything possible, even if we 
cannot discover absolute truth. It is often assumed by certain 
moralists that the best method is no method, and that public 
teachers should simply try to inspire men to a virtuous life, 
without any regard to theories or doctrines. Such a course, 
however, is impossible, because no man can talk about mo- 
rality or religion unless he has some theory in regard to them. 
Some kind of a doctrine must always be presupposed in every 
moral exhortation. It is useless to tell men to be moral, unless 
we can tell them what we mean by morality. It is useless to 
urge them to a religious life, unless we have some theory about 
religion. 

Even public teacher to-day. who is sincere, must feel bound 
to examine for himself the fmidamental questions of right and 
wrong, of morality and religion. Xo matter how anxious he 
may be to persuade men to lead a deep, pure life, he will feel 
the necessity of settling some abstract questions, in order to 
find a working basis. In the very beginning, however, he will 
find that there is generally accepted in the Church a certain 



|2 INTRODUCTION. 

theological system. It will not 1"' possible for him to ignore 
that system. He mnsl either accept it or reject it, and he must 
have reasons tor his action in cither case. It is my desire to 
bring truth to those who listen to me, in order to aid them in 
their daily life. Bnl I discover that when I attempt todi 
any question of practical importance, I at once meet an in- 
herited theology which I am compelled to notice. The tra- 
ditional theology is primarily founded upon revelation and 
authority. If its assumptions are correct, we have no logical 
right to use the human reason. Nothing is more inconsistent 
than for men to assume they have given up old theologies, and 
then use the language of those theologies, and practically 
assume them to be true. Men, for instance, assume that they 
have given up a belief in an infallible Bible, and salvation 
through a crucified Redeemer, and will still appeal to the book, 
as if it were after all infallible, and talk of a salvation which 
grew out of a traditional scheme of redemption. 

The necessity for a new consideration of doctrines is because 
we have new knowledge and a new method. Modern scholar- 
ship and science have affected every one of these doctrines. 
They are all linked together, they all grew out of the same 
false conception of the government of the universe. Although 
some of them have an eternal principle beneath their imperfect 
form, many of them are false; and all of them need readjust- 
ment, in order to be consistent with the best Biblical criticism 
and the proved facts of science. Xot even a liberal church can 
be satisfied with the ideas of the progressive men of fifty years 
ago. In every place but in the Church, it is recognized that 
the whole theory of the universe has been changed since 1S59. 
Xew theories about the origin of man and of species, the 
growth of religion and the Bible, the literature of other relig- 
ions, compel a reconstruction of our whole system of theology. 

If I am to be an intelligent man, I must become familiar 
with the essential discoveries and theories of our age. The 
only question, then, is whether or not we shall consider this 
matter together ? There is a theory that, while public teachers 



TI1E GOSPEL OF LAW. 13 

should make themselves familiar with the latest discovered 
facts, when they speak to their people it should only be on 
practical or sentimental questions. But T have no sympathy 
with any such theory. If it is safe for one man to know the 
facts of science and scholarship, it is safe for him to give these 
tacts to others to the best of his ability. Mr. Greg very justly 
criticises the attempt to make a " distinction between esoteric 
and exoteric views and knowledge," and the theory "that truth 
is the privilege of the few, and edification the only claim and 
right of the many, — that, in a word, sound doctrine is only for 
the clergy and safe doctrine for the laity." Or, as Mr. Spencer 
says : " Let those who can believe that there is eternal war set 
between our intellectual faculties and our moral obligations. 
I, for one, admit no such radical vice in the constitution of 
things." Moreover, one of the greatest aids to virtue is vigor- 
ous thought and intelligence. It has been suggested to me, 
therefore, in my studies that I ought, as far as possible, to give 
you the best results of modern investigation. Admitting that 
there was much truth in the writings of men of the past, the 
investigators of our age have thrown a new flood of light upon 
all the problems of life. It is surely not right that I should 
bring to you teachings built upon half-outgrown or exploded 
theories, when the scholarship of our age is in a different direc- 
tion. It is not necessary for me to give you a catalogue of the 
names of the best modern scientists and Biblical critics and 
authorities on the growth of religious beliefs and customs ; but 
no problem is settled to-day where the results of these in their 
several departments are ignored. It would be inappropriate 
for me to preach science to you or give you the technical proc- 
esses of modern scholarship, even if I had the peculiar training ; 
but it is my duty to take the results of scholarship and apply 
them to theology. All theology is built upon some kind of 
scholarship and science : the only question is whether it shall 
be the latest and best or that which is rejected in every other 
department of thought. To attempt to discuss moral problems 
to-day without recognizing the science and philosophy of to-day 



11 



INTRODUCTION. 



would be like an attempt to play Hamlet with Hamlet left 
out. 

There is one principle which is practically accepted among 
all intelligent men, outside of theological circles, and that is 
that this is a universe of natural law. But, if that is a prin- 
ciple, it must be applied to theology. While negatively, there- 
lore, we may be compelled to reject some old doctrines, we 
shall Hnd, I hope, positively a religion and morality founded on 
this principle. 

Let me say here that I enter upon this study with a spirit of 
sympathy for those who may accept old doctrines. Our love 
for truth makes it necessary that we should show, perhaps, the 
falseness of some of these doctrines; but we may still have 
sympathy with the faith and hope and sense of mystery that 
created them. In fact, the most advanced critics are the most 
sympathetic students of the growth of dogmas and beliefs. 

In our investigations, we must measure everything by the 
use of reason in the light of well-proved facts. There is posi- 
tively no use in mentioning any subject, if one fact must be 
kept back through some motive of policy or expediency. The 
scientific method is the only one that is of any value. It will 
be of no use in this age to try to prove anything by isolated 
texts of Scripture. Even if all the texts of Scripture were 
found to support a certain theory, it would not prove anything ; 
for a part of our investigation must include the question of the 
infallibility of the Scriptures. Of course, in our study, Script- 
ural writings, like all others, are valuable as illustrations, and 
must be recognized ; yet, without anticipating anything here in 
regard to their infallibility, we must take in other proof. Even 
if true, the Bible is only one expression of truth. Sects quote 
text against text with equal facility ; and we must therefore, 
as far as possible, take into consideration everything that is 
proved. 

I cannot, of course, take up every doctrine that might be 
considered fundamental by every believer, as there must be a 
limit somewhere, but I shall try to examine the most essen- 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 15 

tial. There is compensation, however, in our method of treat- 
ment. Every time we consider one doctrine carefully, we inci- 
dentally receive light upon every other. For instance, in con- 
sidering the questions of God and Jesus, we incidentally find 
the truth in regard to the Trinity : in finding out the true 
meaning of sin and salvation, we indirectly find the meaning of 
a true conversion. Every discourse, therefore, becomes a com- 
mentary upon every other. These doctrines are all logically 
connected, had the same origin, and stand or fall together. 
Hoping that, when we have considered this system together, 
we can go forward without continual explanation in upholding 
a natural religion and morality, we can now enter upon the 
different subjects in this series of discourses. 



THE BIBLE: THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

We are compelled to begin this series of discourses 
with a consideration of the Bible, because, on every 
other subject, we would be forced to make continual 
explanations, unless the value of the authority of that 
book is distinctly settled and understood. To avoid rep- 
etition, we must therefore be^in with an understanding 
in regard to a book which is quoted as infallible by many 
people. Many of our best thinkers have treated the 
Bible in the most critical and scholarly manner, but they 
have devoted several lectures to that purpose. It seems 
almost impossible for me to do any full justice to the 
modern rational view of the Bible, in so brief a time. 
The difficulty will be not to find something to say, but 
rather to judge what it will be possible to omit, with- 
out doing injustice to the subject. It would be much 
easier to ignore the whole subject of Scriptural infalli- 
bility: but that we have no moral right so to do, in the 
present state of opinion, is most manifest. 

There lies on this desk a book, which a large portion 
of the world calls the Word of God. On this book 
masses of men build all their hopes of joy here and 
of salvation hereafter ; by- it, they test every question of 
science and art, and morals and happiness ; it is to them 
the one only true and divine revelation; it has been 
made sacred to them, too, by the most hallowed associa- 
tions and tenderest memories ; because of a belief in its 
holiness, it has seemed as valuable to some men as life ; 



18 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

for it, martyrs' blood has been shed, and, clasping it to 
the heart, strong men and loving women have gone 
with faith into the cold waters of death. It would be 
most superficial therefore to pass by a book, so sacred 
to many men and women, with a smile or a sneer of in- 
difference. But, on the other hand, the fact that it is 
considered sacred by many people is no proof that their 
theory concerning it is correct. Other peoples have be- 
lieved just as devoutly in other books, and martyrdom 
only proves that men are zealous in their beliefs, but in 
no sense proves that their beliefs are true. Men have 
died just as heroically under the wheel of a Juggernaut 
as in behalf of a Bible or a Jesus; and women, in an 
hour of death, have clasped a wooden crucifix with as 
much devout faith as any Bible lover ever possessed for 
her precious volume. 

As lovers of truth, we must know the facts on this 
question. If this is the Word of God, with such magic 
power, we want to know it, too. But, on the other hand, 
there is something more important than reverence for 
a book, and that is reverence for truth. If the book is 
the truth, and the only truth, then we are bound to 
accept it as infallible ; but if it is not the truth, if, on 
the other hand, it stands in the way of truth, as a con- 
tinual obstacle in the j^ath of all investigation, then our 
reverence for truth makes it a duty to reject it. As 
honest men, therefore, we are bound to weigh the as- 
sumptions that are made for it, and to discover the exact 
facts as near as they can be discovered. 

There is no way to form a correct opinion of this 
book, handed down from the past, except to find out 
how it grew. The method sometimes adopted by men 



the bible: the old testament. 19 

in their treatment of the Bible is illogical and inconsis- 
tent. Now, it is either the Word of God or it is not : it 
is either to be accepted as infallible, or else it is to be 
judged like other books. If a man begins to throw out 
certain parts of it, he cannot in consistency retain others 
as an infallible revelation. Some of it may be true most 
certainly, but so are portions of other books true. Is a 
thing true merely because it is in this book? is the crucial 
question. If not, why should men, who reject certain 
parts, still quote it on all occasions as the Word of God, 
pre-eminently ? No man has any authority for denying 
the positions of the literal dogmatists, and then coming 
with his fanciful interpretations. How does he know it 
has a hidden meaning? How much of it is allegorical? 
When he assumes that it is the Word of God, to be in- 
terpreted in a fanciful manner, may he not be overlook- 
ing all the facts in regard to its growth? 

The time has come when the people should know the 
substance of modern scholarship in regard to the Bible. 
It is true, moral parts of the Bible may be of use to 
men in their devotions and for instruction, even if they 
have mistaken ideas in regard to it ; but it will be of 
much more use when the people know the real truth. 
When we read the Scriptures in public with the feeling 
that the people know what we mean by it, and that we 
only read them as the opinions of men of the past, and 
not as infallible truth, they will seem much more inter- 
esting. 

Now, then, to this book that lies before us. In order 
to be as brief as possible, let us quote from the statement 
of the Evangelical Alliance, which embraces all the 
churches of Christendom, except the Universalist and 



20 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

Unitarian. That statement expresses a belief in "the 
divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the Holy 
Scripture." This is the broadest, fairest expression of 
evangelical scholars on this subject. We know, of 
course, that the average belief is stronger than this ex- 
pression. We can hear men say that every word of the 
Bible is true, and every punctuation point, from lid t-> 
lid, has a meaning. There are men who in battle carry 
a Bible over their heart, to keep off the enemy's bullets ; 
who would think their home deserted of God, without 
this bound volume; who would think that to burn a 
copy of the Scriptures would likely bring them a direct 
curse from Heaven ; who would open the book at hap- 
hazard, and consider the first verse that came to view 
a direct commandment from God ; and who, in the most 
conscientious manner, would declare that a man, who 
did not believe in the Bible, was not only a sceptic, but 
was also likely immoral, and without any hope of sal- 
vation. There are men who are not conspicuous for 
either intelligence or honesty or fairness, or sweetness 
of disposition, who think that their worship of, and be- 
lief in, this book is religion enough in itself, and who 
test every question of geology and astronomy and nat- 
ural law and character by its teachings. Let us exam- 
ine, then, the authority for this belief. 

If we ask the average believer in the Bible infallibility 
how he comes to accept it as he does, we will likely find 
that it is simply because he has been so taught. In his 
infancy, a Bible was placed in his hands as the Word of 
God, which he was never to doubt. Men might use 
their reason in explaining the Bible, but must not go 
behind it to show how it grew or to compare it with 



the bible: the old testament. 21 

truth. But this is surely not much evidence on the 
question. No police court would couvict a man of 
petty larceny on such evidence, much less condemn him 
to imprisonment for life. Yet the Bible believers con- 
demn to eternal infamy disbelievers in a book, of whose 
ultimate authority they know nothing. 

Now, everything we need to consider on this subject 
can be placed under two propositions, both of which 
must be proved in order that the Bible may be shown 
to be infallible. First, it must be proved that even if 
the men of the past, who are called saints, and whose 
names are attached now to the writings in the Bible, 
ever wrote the different portions of it, that they are 
therefore necessarily true, and the Word of God. Or, 
to put it in another form, even if Moses and Ezra and 
Daniel, and John and Matthew and Paul, and other 
Bible characters, wrote the parts or spoke the words 
attributed to them, it would still have to be proved that 
what they said was true, and the revelation of God, on 
all questions. Secondly, in order to prove that the 
Bible is the infallible Word of God, it must be proved, 
at least, that it was written by certain responsible men. 
In other words, if we cannot discover who wrote por- 
tions of the Bible, if they came into existence through 
some contrivance of men, if they were not written by 
the men whose names are attached to them, it destroys 
their value as an authoritative revelation. You will 
readily see the force of this proposition. A true utter- 
ance is true, whether found in a Bible or in a poem. 
But the claim for the teachings of the Bible is that they 
are infallible, because they were revealed through cer- 
tain holy men. It will be necessary to show, therefore, 



22 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

that certain responsible men did so write them, under 
such ;i divine influence as to keep them from any mis- 
take. There can be but one alternative from this 
ond proposition; and that is to prove that the Bible 
came from God in some mysterious manner, and is 
therefore the Word of God. 

It seems best to consider the second proposition first. 
Let us enter into an historical investigation together, 
and let us know distinctly what we are doing. We 
to examine whether we have utterances of certain men, 
who were once supposed to be under the inspiration of 
God, in such a form as to prove that Word infallible. 
If we find that we have not, and also find that the Bible 
has assumed its present form by natural methods, and 
even by some contrivance of men, then we will see the 
falseness of the alternative idea that it is the Word of 
because it came in some mysterious manner. Let 
us begin with what we have, and trace this book back- 
wards to its source. Here is a book printed in English, 
which many men call the Word of God. This book we 
find was made in 1G11 A.D. by fifty-four learned men 
under James I. of England. It was made by a revision 
of previous English versions, which had themselves been 
translated from Hebrew and Greek. This book, there- 
fore, which lies before us, cannot be the infallible Word 
of God, unless King James and the Englishmen under 
him were under the direct inspiration of the Deity. 
This book was but a revision of certain English t rad- 
iations which had gone before. But, to go back still 
further, there was no complete English Bible printed 
till 1535 A.D., and the first results of the printing-]! 
so far as the English Bible is concerned, were the trans- 



THE bible: the old testament. 23 

lation of Tyndale, which is the true original of all 
English versions. There were also the translations of 
Coverdale, "Matthew's Bible," the "Great Bible," the 
"Genevan Bible" in 1560 A.D., with Calvinistic notes, 
and many others. Then, in 1568 A.D. was printed the 
"Bishop's Bible," which was the basis upon which our 
present Bible was made and revised. In 1582 A.D. at 
Rheims, the Catholics published the New Testament, 
and in 1610 A.D. they produced a version of the Old 
Testament at Douay. All this is uninteresting enough ; 
but the point of significance is that our English Bible, 
in any form, is only about five hundred years old, count- 
ing even from the days of Wycliffe. It is of course 
known that Wycliffe translated the Scriptures into Eng- 
lish first, and this was in 1384 A.D. But this was not 
a printed English Bible, as it was before the age of the 
printing-press. Here, we must confine ourselves to the 
one distinct channel of our present version. It is com- 
mon with many persons to attach much importance to 
the titles and subscriptions of books and chapters in 
the Bible. But our present system of chapters was in- 
vented by Cardinal Hugo in the thirteenth century, and 
was first used in the Latin Bible. The first division into 
verses was made by Robert Stephens, a printer, in 1551 
A.D. The titles, too, and nearly all the subscriptions 
are utterly worthless, and are the devices of men in 
comparatively modern times. And yet these titles, of 
no authority, have furnished the foundation of much of 
our superstitious theology. 

But here we discover that on. river has two great 
tributaries, with an essentially different source. Up to 
the time of the invention of printing there was no such 



24 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

thing as a rounded, complete book called the Bible. 
There were two collections of writings called the He- 
brew Scriptures and the Chr: t Scri] In the 

ial, too, the word Bible does not mean the singular 

at is ■ plural, meaning "books.* 1 I —ad of 

an infallible book, therefore, we soon get back to a time 

when there were only "books" or writings or manu- 

scrip rind then at this point that we have bound 

. translated from certain He- 
brew and Greek manuscripts, which we call the OM and 

Test ectively. Just h-re let us 

long enongh to see how much of the infallibility remains 
for our English book, which men kiss in law courts, and 
to which they cling when they come to die. The punc- 
tuation, paper, di nto chapters and verses, and 
a at the head of chapters and books, are all the crea- 
tion of printers, and other men, who have lived within 
five hundred years. 

Leaving our single channel now and following up the 
tributary called the Old Testament, we find that the 
oldest Hebrew manuscript is not of an earlier date than 

AD. Thai . the old n Old T 

ment we have concerning events which transpired from 
eighteen hundred to six thousand y _ is not eight 

hundred years old. Of course, this manuscript may have 
been, and perhaj - nslated from others with the 

scrupulous care. But it is valaable to call atten- 
tion to one fact which will be as important in examining 
the 1 :ament as the Old. Admitting that there 

manuscript which contained the infallible 

1 of God, what assurance have we that we possess 
asserted that there have been as many as thirty 



THU BIBLE: THU OLD 

thousand ~ various readings" of the old manuscr: 
Tha* rpreting or copying certain an 

man .here hare been thousands of cop: 

ing to a greater or less degrt iiave 

been "glosses 15 hich might change the meaning. Copy- 
ists in copying a manuscript, sometimes for a good and 
sometimes for an evil purpose, would occasionally in 
in the margin certain explanations; another ce 
sometimes would insert this explanation in the rea d 
a mistake in a word would be copied by the next tran- 
scriber. Unless, then, every one of the thousands of 
copyists was infallibly inspired not to make any mistakes 
in penmanship, we are never sure we have the ez ;. .: 
original. In the early days of printing, too, many errors 
would creep in. An edition of 1631 was called the 
"wicked Bible," because the "not w was left out of the 
SrVri:: C:ni::i"z.fi:; :.z:I iizzAfr :i_n:s: zs ~ : :kr 1 
:. IA. A — -.? • ..AAA .1 s . :z. A*r7. A "AAA P.vA ~;_s 
zzt :: s.?.j ~.'l:.~_ •• :1: ir_A_A:f :\:5 A:A AleA: A- 
kingdom of God." If that could happen in com" 
tivery critical times, how much more might mistakes 
arise farther back in history! One other point here is of 
consequence. Originally, the Hebrew manuscripts were 
written without any vowels whatever; and yet every- 
thing depended on what vowel was understood, t A 
Hebrew vowel is a mere speck, of importance according 
to its location in the word. It was not till the Massorets 
— ".:-:— rri -; '. A A. lA:A.AI>. — :z::AI A-} ~:~ els 



ii ii~i 



:: :zi iz.i :zi 



26 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

in the text, that there was any tiling like a correct use of 
vowels in the Hebrew Scriptures. So, according to the 
believers in infallibility, our morals and our salvation 
for all eternity may depend upon whether or not a copy- 
ist has happened to splatter his ink and make uninten- 
tional Hebrew vowels, or upou whether even a fly has 
chanced to dip his foot in the fresh fluid and to punc- 
tuate some consonant; and our only hope is that both 
copyist and fly were infallibly inspired. 

But, in tracing this tributary to its source, we must 
go back still further. We have assumed thus far that 
there might be a distinct, original Word of God some- 
where, even if we have no infallible translation. We 
must therefore look and see if we can find any compact, 
distinct Old Testament, supernaturally revealed. We 
will take one long step backward, to the days of Ezra. 
The first attempt to compile into a canon the Hebrew 
writings was made by Ezra. Now, the Hebrew Script- 
ures, as we possess them, were divided into three parts : 
(1) the Law, or the first five books; (2) the Prophets, 
including Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, with 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor proph- 
ets ; (3) the " Writings," including the Psalms, and all 
the other books in our Old Testament. Originally, the 
Law included Joshua, the Prophets, and the Psalms. 
And here, let me say, I cannot go into all the details, as 
there is a great difference among scholars on many minor 
questions in regard to the divisions. 

(I.) The first canon, we may say broadly, was made 
by Ezra after his return from the captivity, about 4"8 
B.C. It merely included the first five books called The 
Law. The significance of the fact is that the first 



THE BIBLE ! THE OLD TESTAMENT. 27 

known collection of writings considered sacred was 
made more than one thousand years after the supposed 
age of Moses. 

( II.) The second canon was likely made under Nehe- 
miah, soon after, as it is said in II. Maccabees that, when 
founding a library, "he gathered together the acts of 
the kings and the prophets, and the (Psalms) of David, 
and the epistles of the kings concerning the holy gifts." 
That is to say, Neherniah, or men under him, added to 
the canon the historical books and some of the prophets ; 
not all of the prophets, however, as Jonah and Daniel, 
and perhaps Malachi, had not yet been written. Even 
this canon was not likely completed till the close of the 
fourth century B.C. Let us stop long enough to see 
where we are in this study thus far. As late as 400 B.C., 
a large portion of what we call the Word of God, sup- 
posed to contain an infallible revelation, was not yet 
edited, and some of it not yet even in existence. 

(III.) It is almost impossible to tell anything posi- 
tively about the third canon, or the addition of the 
other " writings," besides those just mentioned, like the 
Psalms and Proverbs. These writings were collected, 
and even written, through a process of years. I have 
been compelled from lack of time to omit many interest- 
ing points ; but I call your attention to this essential 
fact, that not even at the birth of Jesus was there a com- 
plete canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Ezekiel, 
for instance, was not admitted at the first, because it 
seemed to contradict the Law. The Book of Ecclesi- 
astes was kept out for a time, because of its sceptical 
and contradictory teaching; Canticles, because it was 
considered by many to be too sensual to be read ; Esther, 



28 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

because there is no word about God in it; and Proverbs, 
because of its lack of any consistent teaching. There 
was continual controversy, even in the first century after 
Jesus, among the Jews, as to what should be considered 
the sacred canon. It was not till the Synod of Jamnia, 
90 A.D., that the canon was virtually settled; and even 
then it was not absolutely defined, because Sirach was 
added to it as late as the fourth century A.D., and 
Baruch was read on the day of atonement in the third 
century. The Samaritans never accepted anything but 
the first five books of the Bible, because they thought no 
other books were invested with sufficient authority. 

Besides the Hebrew or Palestinian version of the He- 
brew writings at that time, there soon arose a version 
called the Septuagint. This was made necessary by the 
fact that many of the Jews in Egypt, and elsewhere, were 
compelled to use the Greek language, and the Script- 
ures were therefore translated into Greek. It is called 
the Septuagint because of a fable that seventy-two schol- 
ars were locked up separately, and all made exactly the 
same translation. The fact is that Ptolemy Philadel- 
phus, in behalf of literature, employed learned men, to 
get as correct a translation as possible of these old writ- 
ings. But this version became the popular one of early 
Christianity, — although the Latin Vulgate had at last a 
great influence, — and had in it, besides our Hebrew 
Scriptures, several other books which are now called 
the Apocrypha. Many of the books you will find in any 
large family Bible. Now you know that, although they 
may be so found there, they are not considered the 
Word of God by Protestants. The Catholic Council of 
Trent declared these to be canonical, with the exception 



THE BIBLE : THE OLD TESTAMENT. 29 

of I. and II. Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses,* al- 
though the Catholic Bible does not contain all the 
Apocryphal books that were received by the early 
Church with the same sacredness as other Scriptures. 
These books were not only included in the canon, but 
were mixed in with the other books in such a way as to 
show that they were then considered of equal authority. 
Esdras follows Chronicles; Tobit and Judith are be- 
tween Nehemiah and Esther ; the Wisdom of Solomon, 
and Sirach follow Canticles ; Baruch follows Jeremiah ; 
Susannah, Daniel, and the three Books of Maccabees 
form the conclusion. The Ethiopian version, too, con- 
tains other books, not even enumerated here, and gives 
the same authority to the Book of Adam as to the Book 
of Genesis. Even the Book of Enoch is quoted in the 
New Testament with as much authority as the Penta- 
teuch. The Council of Carthage, 397 A.D., accepted a 
list of books to be used, which had been made by the 
Council of Hippo (393), and is considered the first coun- 
cil which definitely decided on the canon of our New 
Testament; but this same council also accepted the 
Apocrypha. So, if we go back to the past for some 
decision as to the Word of God, we are forced to receive 
this Apocrypha ; and the Protestant Church to-day 
practically rejects a portion of what has the same 
authority as its authorized Hebrew Scriptures and New 
Testament. If it is truth men want, too, instead of a 
blind, ignorant worship of a book, a great wrong is done 
by rejecting the Apocrypha. The Apocryphal books 

*This, according to several authorities; but, according to S. Davidson, 
the original exceptions were III. and IV. Esdras, III. Maccabees, and the 
Prayer of Manasses. 



30 THE GOSrEL OF LAW. 

are many of them far superior to the other books of the 
Bible. The Maccabees contain one of the most interest- 
ing and reliable histories of an important period in 
Jewish history. We find in the Wisdom of Solomon, 
and Ecclesiasticus intimations of a belief in immortality, 
which cannot be found in the Old Testament. We find 
here the natural growth of many ideas which many 
suppose to have been revealed full-fledged by Chris- 
tianity. But to sum up this point : when we try to find 
an original canon for our present Scriptures, we find 
that the canon was formed gradually, and by the most 
arbitrary methods. There is no consistent reason for 
our present canon. The question as to what is to be 
considered the Word of God was settled in an uncritical 
age, in quarrelsome councils, which were manipulated 
with as much craft and governed by as selfish motives 
as a modern religious council or a political convention. 

But we must go back one step further still. It may 
be said that, even if the canon were formed arbitrarily, 
yet the different books preserved are so reliable in them- 
selves as to make up for us an infallible Word of God. 
We must, then, take as careful a look as time will per- 
mit at these books themselves. Now let us know dis- 
tinctly what we are to examine here. We are to con- 
sider whether enough is known about the authorship of 
these books and whether they were written at such a 
time as to prove them absolutely reliable records. Up 
to this point, I have not made one historical statement 
that is not acknowledged in substance by every man 
with any claims to Biblical scholarship. Here, we ap- 
proach a point where there may be some difference of 
opinion. I shall, however, be careful to confine myself 



THE BIBLE : THE OLD TESTAMENT. 31 

Co essential facts acknowledged by scholars. Men, for 
instance, differ as to the time or authorship of certain 
books; but there are essential facts accepted by all who 
are authority on the subject. 

First, then, Moses never wrote the first five books 
called by his name; and nobody knows, or has known for 
at least two thousand years, who did write them. There 
are historical and geographical references that show they 
were written near tho close of the kingly period. I can 
only illustrate this point, but, if there were time, could 
easily give proof. For instance, when it is said in Gen- 
esis that something happened "before there reigned a 
king of the children of Israel," it shows that it was 
written by some one who knew something about the 
kings of Israel. Moses, who lived hundreds of years be- 
fore there was a king, would not speak of a time before 
there was one. Only seven centuries B.C., we are told 
that Josiah was very much surprised when a copy of the 
Law was discovered in the temple, as repairs were being 
made. But it seems very strange that he should have 
been surprised, if there were already five books of 
Moses in existence. Stranger, too, that a king, hundreds 
of years after David, should have been surprised to hear 
that Jahveh was the only true God, if the Pentateuch 
were already formed. The fact is that the Pentateuch 
is a collection of different laws and traditions and writ- 
ings gathered up gradually, and compiled even after 
Josiah. In Xumbers, it is said that " the man Moses was 
very meek, above all the men which w^ere upon the face 
of the earth." But, if Moses was very meek, he surely 
never wrote that about himself. There are many pas- 
sages that show that the writer of the Pentateuch lived 



82 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

in Palestine; but, according to the record itself, Moses 
never was in Palestine. In Exodus, God is represented 
as saying that he "appeared unto Abraham and Isaac 
and Jacob by the name of God Almighty; but by my 
name Jahveh was I not known unto them." And yet 
one of the writers in Genesis does call God by the name 
Jahveh, showing that it was a writer who lived under a 
later development of the God idea. There is no impor- 
tant difference between the language employed in the 
Pentateuch and that of books written about the time of 
the captivity. Even the literalist will hardly claim that 
Moses wrote the record concerning his own death, which 
is found in the Pentateuch. The ancient Jews, and even 
Philo, never thought of referring to Moses as an his- 
torian, but only as a law-giver. Now, if you ask me who 
wrote these books, I must reply that I cannot answer, 
nor can any one else. They were probably compiled by 
some one in the days of Josiah, or perhaps Manasseli, 
although scholars differ. The best scholars agree on this 
point, however, that there were two original documents, 
and perhaps more, from which a compilation was made. 
One old writer, called the Jehovist, used the name 
Jahveh, and at least one other writer, called the Elohist, 
used the name Elohim, for God. There are two distinct 
histories of the creation and of the flood and of the way 
Saul became king. Deuteronomy was perhaps written 
by a different person from the rest. We cannot make a 
complete critical survey, but in general it may be said 
that there were likely many old writings and traditions. 
Reference is even made in the Pentateuch to the Book 
of the Wars of Jahveh and the Book of Jashar. The 
Pentateuch was likely called the Law after Moses, be- 



THE BIBLE I THE OLD TESTAMENT. 33 

cause it contains laws ; and Moses possibly gave the sub- 
stance of the Ten Commandments. But some of the 
documents out of which the whole Pentateuch was 
formed did not exist until several hundred years after 
his death. The Pentateuch was therefore formed by 
some unknown compiler out of a variety of materials, 
not far from the time of the captivity. This will 
account for the various contradictions and repetitions, 
as the compiler did not attempt always to reconcile the 
different portions. 

The Book of Joshua, which comes next, was a part of 
the Pentateuch in the Jewish canon, and was not written 
by Joshua, unless he too could write up the account of 
his own death, but was also compiled near the time of 
the captivity, and was essentially formed from two dis- 
tinct fragments. Judges, which assumes to be a record 
of the life of the Hebrews in Canaan before there was a 
king, and contradicts the Book of Joshua by showing 
that there was not unity when the tribes first entered 
the land, but that they were motley tribes, defending 
themselves as best they could, under strong leaders, was 
probably compiled about 700 B.C., by an unknown hand. 
The Book of Ruth is one of the most beautiful stories in 
the Old Testament, and is a sweet poem, full of the most 
charitable spirit. As to the time when it was written, 
scholars differ so much that we cannot be dogmatic. 
Davidson points to the time of King Hezekiah as the 
time when the writer lived; but Oort and Kuenen think 
it was written during or after the days of Ezra, and 
written for a purpose. That purpose was to break down 
the narrow spirit of Ezra and Nehemiah. These men 
had forbidden marriage with foreigners, and tried to 



34 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

make the Jews as exclusive as possible. But this writer 
of Ruth shows that even David, their ideal king, was 
born of a Moabitess. The Books of Samuel were not 
written by Samuel, unless he too could write of his own 
death. They are full of contradictions, and the text has 
been very corrupt; and they were likely written by some 
one, long after the events recorded, who wished to glo- 
rify Samuel and David over Saul. It is probable the 
books assumed their present form about the time of the 
captivity. 

The Books of Kings were written at different times, 
but were compiled by some one with more of a prophetic 
than a priestly spirit, — some one who wanted to show 
that only in obedience to the God of the Hebrew could 
there be success in the life of a ruler. Davidson thinks 
they were compiled, if not by the prophet Jeremiah, at 
least by some one under his influence, and therefore not 
far from 600 B.C. The Chronicles are perhaps the most 
unreliable of the Old Testament records. The writer 
has copied from a variety of sources, as he shows himself, 
for a distinct purpose. He had the priestly spirit, and 
wanted to glorify the Levites and the temple religion. 
He contradicts Samuel and the Kings, and his chronol- 
ogy is unreliable. The books were written as late as 
300 B.C., in order to make history that would give more 
authority to the priesthood. Ezra and Nehemiah were 
included with the Chronicles in the Jewish canon. They 
were compiled by the same hand, partly out of the writ- 
ings of the men whose names they bear and partly from 
other sources. The Book of Esther is of unknown date 
and authority. It was long refused admittance into the 
Jewish canon, principally because it makes no reference 



THE BIBLE: THE OLD TESTAMENT. 35 

to God. Although containing an interesting narrative, 
it has no historical value. It was written to show an 
origin for the feast of Purim, and Kuenen calls it a 
romance invented to make that feast popular. Davidson 
places its date about 300 B.C. 

If I do not say much about the Book of Job, it is not 
because it is not worthy of it, but simply because there 
is not the time. It is one of the most beautiful dramas 
in literature. It was written to show something of the 
cause of pain and suffering. But nobody knows who 
wrote it or when it was written. 

When we come to the Psalms, it is well to remember 
that many of their titles were manufactured by English- 
men who formed our present version, and are of no 
authority whatever. Many of the Psalms, too, are com- 
posed of two or more fragments which have been arbi- 
trarily united together. The general impression is that 
the Psalms are the composition of David ; and yet this 
impression has been created without good reason. For 
example, Psalms which refer to the temple, that was 
not built until after David's death, are still piously called 
the Psalms of that traditional hero poet. Heilprin, the 
very best authority on Hebrew poetry, argues that there 
is the best of proof that David never wrote any of them, 
and Kuenen and Knappert are of the same opinion; and 
even Robertson Smith only attributes the seventh and 
eighteenth Psalms positively to David. The Psalms are, 
in an historical sense, a collection of the utterances of 
Hebrew poets through hundreds of years. They bear 
the name of David because, as David became the ideal 
hero of the Hebrew nation, it would give this collection 
dignity in the eyes of the Hebrews to give it his name. 



36 the gospel of law. 

They were compiled b\ some unknown person, but will 
nevertheless, many of them, be cherished as rare expres- 
sions of human emotion ; and that none the less because 
modern scholars have shown that they were not many 
of them written by such a coarse and cruel man as 
David. 

The Book of Proverbs is simply a collection of the 
wise sayings of the nation through hundreds of years, 
and was compiled by an unknown author after the re- 
turn from the captivity. Nothing could show the super- 
stitious idolatry of a book more than the attempt of men 
to find some reference to Jesus, and even to a Trinity, in 
this book. 

This book itself shows that Solomon did not compose 
it all. Probably he did utter some proverbs; and then 
very naturally, after the proverbs of the nation were 
collected, it would be but in consistency with the custom 
of the past to give the collection his name. 

The Book of Ecclesiastes was not written by Solomon, 
but by some unknown writer, in very late times, after 
the captivity. This book is so sceptical and selfish 
that none but word-worshippers would ever have con- 
sidered it a part of the Word of God. The Jews did 
not receive it into the canon for a long period. The 
writer assumes to be Solomon, to give his book impor- 
tance; but the deception is too apparent to any one who 
will read the book carefully. 

Probably no book has shown the absurd position of 
the doctrine of infallibility better than that of Canticles. 
It has been interpreted to refer to Jesus as the bride- 
groom, and the Church as the bride. There has been an 
immense amount of sentimental and voluptuous sugges- 



THE BIBLE : THE OLD TESTAMENT. 37 

tion by means of this poem, under the thin excuse that 
it was in the Bible. Taken for what it is, and for what 
it was meant to be, it is one of the most beautiful poems 
of antiquity. Instead of having been written by Solo- 
mon, it was written by some one after the age of Sol- 
omon, who had no love for that magnificent voluptuary. 
It is a love poem, in which a Shunamite girl shows her 
devotion to her plain lover, in spite of the enticements 
of a king, who tried to tempt her into his banqueting- 
house. 

Xow, from sheer lack of time, we cannot enter into 
any detailed account of the prophecies. It is unfortu- 
nate, too, because all modern criticism takes its stand on 
the utterances of the prophets. To find the truth about 
the Hebrew life, we must go to the prophets, and not to 
the pretended histories. The prophets were the real 
historians of a nation in the days before critical history. 
Devoted to an ideal of righteousness, they uttered what 
they saw to be true. These prophets, of course, could 
not absolutely foretell future events: on many details, 
some of their prophecies utterly failed. But they were 
men of conviction, the men who could tell from certain 
general principles what would result from certain con- 
duct. The old prophets of the past were merely 
reasoning from their large observation and clear insight, 
although some of them thought they were in an ecstatic 
state. But the point here is this, that the prophets were 
the most real men of the age, and unconsciously in their 
writings give us the life of their people. So our best 
history of Israel, in an uncritical age, is not in manu- 
factured chronicles, but in the natural utterances of 
prophets. 



38 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

Modern scholars therefore go to the eighth century 
B.C., niid there they find such prophets as Amos, Hosea, 
Isaiah, Micah, and perhaps Nahum, about whose exist- 
ence there is no doubt ; and in their reported speeches 
they necessarily discover the real life of the nation. 
From that time onward there are prophets whose utter- 
ances are the best mirror of the truth. Incidentally, 
too, it appears that the early prophets knew nothing 
about a Pentateuch, and all the highly developed relig- 
ion which we find mentioned in such books as Chroni- 
cles, showing conclusively that these other histories are 
of later origin. They are evidently talking to coarse, 
idolatrous people whom they are trying to lead to right- 
eousness. From this ground, therefore, scholars weigh 
and judge all contradictory histories. 

Now, abruptly leaving this point, let us see what we 
have discovered. As far as time would permit, I have 
given you under this point the method and results of 
critics in regard to the books of the Hebrew Bible. 
These critics are the best Biblical scholars of the age, — 
not infidels, not coarse, irreverent blasphemers, as igno- 
rant people suppose, but men who study in sympathy 
with religion, and even accept the religion of Jesus. As 
a result of this examination, we discover that there is 
not enough known about the authorship or dates of the 
books of the Old Testament to give us any proof that 
they are infallible records. The Prophets are the most 
accurate records, and contain much truth ; but even they 
have many of them been compiled or edited by un- 
known men: they are not all the utterances of men 
whose name they bear. Aside from them, we are 
utterly and hopelessly at sea; and from Genesis to Mala- 



THE BIBLE ! THE OLD TESTAMENT. 39 

chi we do not know positively who wrote, in its present 
form, a single sentence, or exactly when the books were 
composed. These books came into existence through 
hundreds of years, in a barbarous age, when there was 
no such thing as scholarly criticism, when anything 
became sacred that seemed to come by authority or in 
a mysterious manner. Many of them show evidence of 
manipulation and contrivance to bring power to a cer- 
tain element or class; and not one of them, in its en- 
tirety, has any internal, moral evidence of containing an 
infallible revelation. We are compelled then, in simple 
honesty, to conclude that we have in these books no 
evidence of any infallible Word of God. The general 
outcome of our investigation is that no one knows 
enough about these books to prove them infallible. Let 
men refuse to accejrt the carefully prepared results of 
scholars, and they are only more ignorant about the 
authors and dates of these books, and are in a worse con- 
dition than ever, because to refuse the results of scholar- 
ship is only to make the argument stronger that no one 
knows that they have any infallible authority. Scholars 
confess they know little ; but they have given us a theory. 
Men who reject scholarship know nothing. Some men 
may feel badly, and others may become angry, when they 
are told this plain truth ; but neither sadness nor anger 
furnishes any light or any argument. Men sometimes 
assume a great deal of piety when they declare that 
they do not know much about the Hebrew Bible, yet 
they believe everything in it to be the Word of God. 
But a man has no moral right to believe everything in 
it, if he does not know much about it. He ought to 
know something about it before he parades his belief. 



40 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

He has no right to believe that a book is the Word of a 
Righteous and Infinite Power which begins by teaching 
the inferiority of woman, tells of a God who could 
deceive and change his mind, commands the meanest 
cruelty and upholds the destruction of enemies, calls a 
depraved king the man after God's ow r n heart, — a book 
that is full of contradictions and absurdities, of false 
science and a more false morality. He has no right to 
uphold such a book, unless he knows very much about 
it. Ignorance becomes a sin when a man might be wise, 
and ignorance about the Bible is a very poor proof of 
its infallibility. 

Let us sum up our investigations here. The second 
proposition, which we saw must be proved in order to 
prove the Bible the Word of God, has then no proof. 
That is to say, we have no proof that certain reliable and 
infallible men ever wrote it. The alternative proposition 
also fails of proof, that God gave the Bible in some mys- 
terious way. Although we do not know who wrote the 
books, we do know enough to conclude that there is no 
divine mystery about it, but that it grew naturally, and 
by design and even manipulation of men. The first 
proposition needs but a sentence or two. Even if men 
knew that certain good men in the past wrote the books, 
there is nothing to show that what they wrote was 
always true or the Word of God. Admitting that they 
were good, they were not of such a class or of such an 
age that they would necessarily always speak the truth. 
But, as we have seen that they may not even have been 
good men always, we do not need to spend a moment on 
the question. The second proposition not having any 
proof, the first naturally fails of proof. 



THE BIBLE : THE OLD TESTAMENT. 41 

Now let us see what has become of this "infallible 
"Word of God," of which we hear so much, and on what 
it rests. The old theory in regard to the support of the 
earth was that it rested on the back of an elephant, 
and that the elephant rested on a tortoise. When 
men asked what the last animal stood upon, they were 
silenced by being told that they had asked one question 
too many. So it is with the ayerage support for an 
infallible Bible. Our English Bible is supposed to rest 
on a tangible original ; but that original is found to 
consist of thousands of readings of certain ancient manu- 
scripts. Those manuscripts rest on the decisions of 
fallible men, arbitrarily formed. The books they chose 
haye no known authorship and no certain date. And 
our infallible Bible at last is found to rest, like the 
fabled tortoise, on an unknown yoid. 

But I cannot and will not be indifferent to a question 
that may arise here. Some men may ask in sad sincerity. 
What will you stand on, and what will you do for truth, 
without the infallible Bible ? I reply that for the pres- 
ent I propose to stand on the solid earth. Truth I 
expect to find eyerywhere in this great uniyerse, through 
the intellect, and by means of the combined investiov.- 
tions of all wise men. Some of it is in these old writ- 
ings, and in other Bibles, in the writings of scientists 
and historians and poets. Truth found eyerywhere is 
the only real Word of God. It is wonderful what super- 
stitious reyerence men haye for a book. Any man is 
inspired who tells the truth. If a preacher were to read 
the most deyotional j^oems of Whittier or Tennyson or 
some Hindu, in some churches, on a Sunday morning. 
some men would be shocked, although thev micrht haxe 



42 THE GOSPEL <>k LAW. 

infinitely more tenderness and reverence than some 
verses from an Old Testament. Some men think they 
feel exceedingly pious when they hear a preacher read 
in a monotonous way that some old patriarch begat sons 
and daughters and then died, and would feel hurt to 
hear a really religious literature. But I know not why 
a record of a babe born to Abraham is any more holy 
than the story of a babe born in the nineteenth century. 

Why not confess that the Old Testament is not the 
Word of God? The most orthodox preacher dare not 
read one-half of it in his pulpit. If he did, he would 
soon gain a reputation for vulgarity. 

But have I not stated clearly what the Old Testament 
is? Already we have seen what it is by studying its 
growth. It is not the Word of God, but it is the litera- 
ture of one of the most vigorous of ancient nations. 
When we get rid of the idea of its infallibility, too, men 
will prize it as a record of the development of the God- 
idea in that line of human history in which we happen 
to be born. But it is not an infallible, religious book. 
Not to speak of parts that are irreligious and immoral, 
it was never intended to be an entirely religious book. 
It is partly unreligious ; that is, certain parts have no 
direct reference to religion, and were never intended to 
have. It is the literature of a vigorous nation for hun- 
dreds of years. It is the literature of its science, (none 
the less science because now proved false), of its laws, of 
its history, just as of its religion. It is true that, because 
of the idea that the God of the tribe was also its civil 
ruler, religion is often mixed up with law ; but, strictly 
speaking, it is just as much a civil as a religious record. 

Bind up in one book the sermons of Channing and the 



THE BIBLE: THE OLD TESTAMENT. 43 

prayers of Parker, along with the Constitution of the 
United States and the poems of Longfellow and the 
New York Tribune, and you have in American litera- 
ture an analogy of the Old Testament. Its grandest 
climax is the word of prophets who speak of an Eternal 
who makes for righteousness ; but it is also the romantic 
and legal and civil literature. As ancient literature, it is 
not likely surpassed, and far excels the New Testament. 
There are a dozen quotations from it in the best litera- 
ture where there is one from the last, because it was 
written by the most active men of a most vigorous race. 
When we are once free from all superstitious reverence, 
we are glad to do it justice. Its love poems, as love 
poems, are many of them most exquisitely sweet and 
beautiful. The devotion of Ruth, the faithfulness of the 
Shunamite maiden, the expression of the love for Jona- 
than, surpassing the love of woman, are among the most 
tender and rapturous expressions of the love that is 
stronger than death, which could be found in any litera- 
ture or idiom. Its war songs, as war songs, have the real 
ring of a trumpet ; and its prophecies, as expressions of 
despair or hope, have the sad, plaintive wailing of an 
iEolian harp. 

The personal God of modern Christendom has a touch 
of earth in comparison with the Eternal of the more 
advanced Hebrews. Jahveh, whatever else he is, is a 
being of dignity, when mentioned by the best of the 
prophets, and brings a thrill of inspiration. He sits on 
the floods, he makes the cedars of Lebanon tremble, he 
walks on the great deep, he is the secret behind all rev- 
erence and romance, — the one strange mystery in deep, 
pure music; and he himself it is who is the weirdness of 



44 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 



brooks and hills and mountains. There is so much 
depth in the cry of the Hebrew poet after the living 
God that, in spite of what is accidental and false in the 
theology, much of it still fittingly expresses our soul- 
hunger after infinite life and fulness, after light and 
love and an eternal pity. 



THE BIBLE: THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

We find in society a belief that the Bible is the infal- 
lible Word of God. There is no way to discover the 
truth on that question except by analyzing the book in 
the light of known facts, and then forming a conclusion 
based on those facts. 

Unless, too, we have given this subject special study 
within a few years, it is not best for any of us to take it 
for granted that we have alwavs known everything on 
the subject. As one single example of the necessity of 
changing some ideas to-day from those of even forty 
years ago, it is worth while to remember that the manu- 
script which is now supposed to be the oldest one of the 
New Testament was not discovered until 1844 A.D., 
and that this manuscript differs in many particulars from 
other ones which have been used as originals. As I said 
in considering the Old Testament, many most interest- 
ing points must be passed over. 

Our main argument does not rest, however, on the 
study of unessential details. There is no better way in 
treating the New Testament than to begin at the Eng- 
lish version and trace its origin backwards. What we 
seek to know is what the New Testament is, and 
whether its origin is of such a kind as to prove its infal- 
libility. Our search here assumes, too, a more distmct 
form. Our problem to-day is much simplified. We do 



46 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

not need to stop to consider the question in detail^ 
whether, even if we had the exact words of Jesus, they 
would on all questions be infallible. That question will 
more logically be considered when we come to examine 
the Church doctrine about Jesus. The believer in the 
traditional theology, however, must not only desire to 
find this New Testament reliable, because it gives him a 
record of the life of a great teacher, but every part must 
be proved the very Word of God. It is assumed, even 
by the publishers of our Bible, that we have an exact 
translation of an infallible original. Open almost any 
New Testament, and you will find these words on the 
title-page, " The New Testament of our Lord and Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ, translated out of the original Greek." 
Now, a rationalist might deny that it was an infallible 
Word of God, even if we had an original " Testament " 
of Jesus. But to a traditional believer it becomes essen- 
tial to show that we have, or even can have, the true re- 
port of the life and utterance of Jesus. We must then 
consider first and principally whether the New Testa- 
ment is really a record of the teachings of Jesus, so cor. 
rect as to make it infallible. 

I. We must first, then, consider the foundation for 
our English New Testament. It is known to all of you, 
of course, that the original New Testament, if found, 
must be in the Greek language. Now, when we leave 
our English Testament, we discover that the first printed 
Greek Testament was the Complutensian Polyglott, 
made in 1514 A.D. This was made from modern man- 
uscripts, however, and was full of errors. It is a sig- 
nificant fact that the spurious passage, I. John v., 7, 
appeared in the third edition of this version for the first 



the bible: the new testament. 47 

time. That is the passage about the three witnesses, (or 
"Trinity"), in heaven, and interpolated fifteen hundred 
years after Jesus, to uphold a doctrine, gives an example 
of how doctrines were manufactured. Servetus was 
burned principally because he did not believe in the 
doctrine of the " Trinity " ; and yet no one text has done 
more to uphold that doctrine than the one which is now 
known to have been manufactured nearly fifteen centu- 
ries after the assumed date. The oldest known manu- 
scripts of the Greek New Testament are believed to date 
back to the fourth century. There are five manuscripts 
which are considered by scholars to be the most reliable 
and valuable. Of course there are hundreds of manu- 
scripts of different ages, containing different parts of the 
Bible. In the earlier manuscripts, the uncial letters are 
used ; that is, all the letters are capitals and of the same 
size, and written for the most part without any divisions 
or stops. The cursive or " running " kind of writing is 
of later origin. Now, as I can only take time to notice 
the essential part of this question, we need not notice 
particularly any but the uncial manuscripts. We will 
have the substance of all, too, because all questions are 
now settled among scholars by referring to five or six of 
the oldest manuscripts, to which we must briefly refer. 

(1) The Codex Alexandrinus is referred to the fifth 
century, and contains nearly all the Old Testament and 
all the New, with the exception of nearly all of Mat- 
thew's Gospel, about two chapters in the Fourth Gospel 
and a portion of I. Corinthians. The books are not 
arranged the same as in our translation, and it also con- 
tains one Epistle of Clement and a portion of another. 

(2) Codex Ephraemi is in the National Library of 



48 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

Paris, and is a palimpsest dating also from the fifth 
century. In critical authority, this manuscript is con- 
sidered next in value to the two oldest which we have 
yet to notice, but it does not contain II. Thessalonians 
or II. John. 

(3) The Codex Bezae, presented by Theodore Beza to 
the University of Cambridge, dates from the sixth cen- 
tury, and only contains the four Gospels and the Acts in 
Greek and. Latin on opposite pages, with a few verses 
from III. John. It shows evidence of interpolations and 
manipulation. 

(4) One manuscript, which has always until recently 
been considered the most valuable is the Codex Vati- 
canus. It is kept in the Vatican Library at Rome, and 
dates from the fourth century. It contains nearly all of 
the Old Testament, and the New as far as Hebrew ix., 
14. It has belonged to the Vatican Library since the 
fifteenth century, and its earlier history is unknown. It 
was a long time before the world was allowed to see it; 
but it is now published by papal authority. 

(5) The most interesting, and, along with the one in 
the Vatican, the most valuable authority, is that of the 
Codex Sinaiticus. This manuscript was discovered in 
1844, by Tischendorf, in the Greek convent of Saint 
Catherine, on the range of Mount Sinai. He found it 
in a waste-basket full of torn manuscripts. He obtained 
possession then of forty-three sheets, but was not per- 
mitted to take more at that time. It was not until 1859, 
and then only by the influence of Alexander II. of 
Russia, that he was allowed to see the other portions. 
This manuscript contains the New Testament entire, 
and the Epistle of Barnabas, and Pastor of Hermas, and 



THE BIBLE : THE NEW TESTAMENT. 19 

also the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. The 
titles to books in this manuscript are very brief. It is 
supposed to be the oldest manuscript in existence. Its 
discovery, more than any other one event, has done 
much to create the necessity for a new translation of 
the New Testament. 

We have then found our first basis for the English 
Testament, which is supposed to contain the Word of 
God, or the Word of Jesus about God. Let us consider 
the essential facts discovered up to this point. When 
we wish to find a rounded, complete original on which 
to base our New Testament, we find that the nearest 
we come to it is a Greek manuscript discovered in a 
Greek convent, as late as 1844. There are, of course, 
thousands of copies of different Christian Scriptures; 
there are other manuscripts of great importance to the 
student. By comparison, the body of the original may 
of course be approximately found. But we are seeking 
an infallible Word of God. As students of ancient 
literature, we may find enough to give us general satis- 
faction. But our salvation may hang on a text, and we 
are never quite sure we have the exact text. We are 
told, for instance, that we must believe in the Deity of 
Jesus. But we have already seen how one favorite text 
in support of that Deity, or the "Trinity," came into 
existence. As an illustration, let us look at one other 
incident. The next strongest support of the doctrine of 
the Deity of Jesus is that in I. Timothy iii., 16, contain- 
ing the expression, "God was manifest in the flesh," 
referring to Jesus. But it turns out that this was, too, 
the work of some copyist. The text ought to read, 
" He who was manifested in the flesh." The process of 
making a Bible to suit a theology is quite interesting. 



50 Tin: (.<> i i i. «'K law. 

The Codex Alexandrinofl is the only one of the uncial 
manuscripts which has the word "God" in this sentence. 
All that was necessary for a copyist to do was to make 
a straight mark over or in a letter, and u he who" would 
be changed into M Qodf* and Jesus be turned into the 
Deity. If this can be done in one instance, why may it 
not in another? On such a vital question, it is not 
enough to say that a few mistakes are of no conse- 
quence. The errors are most likely to be made on vital 
questions. Hundreds of men have been banished or 
murdered because they did not believe in the divinity of 
Jesus. But we have discovered the two most palpable 
errors on that very question. Besides, we want the 
Word of God, and nothing else. But in almost all these 
manuscripts, even in the Codex Sinaiticus, we find such 
books as those of Clement and the Pastor of Hermas. 
If we can only be saved by the Word of God, why do 
not our modern revisers give us Barnabas and the Pastor 
of Hermas, which are found in the most valuable manu- 
script in existence ? How do we know that there is not 
something in those books as necessary for our salvation 
as in Philemon or the Apocalypse ? 

Then, in regard to the discovery of the Codex Sinait- 
icus. Every one who loves literature, and who honors 
studious zeal, will give credit to young Tischendorf, who, 
at the age of twenty-nine, discovered that manuscript in 
the Greek convent. It would be hypercritical, most 
surely, to ignore the value of that discovery. But this 
is a question of infallibility on the most important sub- 
jects, and not merely the value of an ancient manuscript. 
As a general proof of a general literature, it brings valu- 
able authority; but will it do on questions of salvation? 



the bible: the new testament. 51 

All revisions are compared to-day with that manuscript. 
But will this do for an infallible test for eternal salva- 
tion ? A young man finds some sheets of a manuscript 
in a convent, eighteen hundred years after Jesus. Not 
till fifteen years afterwards does he even catch a glimpse 
of the remainder of that manuscript. Honest scholar as 
he is, too, even Teschendorf has difficult work in finding 
the original in that manuscript, amid all the alterations 
and corrections that are spread over it. Over texts in 
the Bible, men have quarrelled, husbands and wives have 
separated, and condemnations of death and eternal dam- 
nation have been pronounced ; and yet the latest crucial 
test is an explanation of a manuscript found by a young 
scholar in 1844 in a waste-basket in a convent. How do 
we know, too, that other convents may not have other 
manuscripts that will still change the beliefs of men. 
The manuscripts of the Vatican and of Tischendorf 
leave out some things in which our grandfathers believed. 
If we throw out portions of this New Testament which 
our ancestors believed as infallible as the rest, how do 
we know that new discoveries may not cause men to 
eliminate something else in the days of our children? 
We are forced then to say that the basis of our New 
Testament is too feeble and precarious for us to accej)t it 
as infallible, or to build upon it the hope and joy and 
morality of our lives. 

II. Thus far, we have been considering the question 
wdiether, even if there were some fixed canon of New 
Testament Scriptures, we are sure we have correct man- 
uscripts of it. We must next consider whether or not 
there ever was a canon formed in such a way as to be 
authoritative. We would naturally suppose from gvn- 



52 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

eral beliefs on this question that some time, not long 
after the time of Jesus, apostles and other prominent 
leaders in the new movement absolutely decided upon 
something called the New Testament Scriptures. As 
an historical fact, however, no body of men ever decided 
in a council that certain writings were canonical and 
others uncanonical, until the Council of Laodicea, 363 
A.D. Indeed, many suppose that the decision of that 
council on the subject is a forgery of later date, and that 
there was never a real decision by a council in regard to 
the sacredness of our present New Testament until the 
Council of Carthage, 397 A.D. But, admitting the cor- 
rectness of the canon in the first-mentioned council, it 
was three hundred and sixty- three years after Jesus, in 
an age when there was no printing-press, no such thing 
as historical criticism, when the air was full of floating 
tradition, when there were different parties in the Church 
all trying to prove themselves the legitimate followers of 
Jesus, before there was any decision as to the canonical 
books. Even this council threw out our Revelation, or 
the Apocalypse. Now, our next step backward must be 
to the writings of the apostolic and Christian Fathers. 
By the Fathers, we mean the writers who lived the 
nearest the age of Jesus and the apostles. We must go 
to the best writers of that day to find what they thought 
about a New Testament, if there were such a thing. 

Clement of Rome, 97 A.D., did not know any such 
thing as a canon of the New Testament. When he 
speaks of "Scriptures," he refers alone to the Old Testa- 
ment writings. He never refers to any Gospels; and, 
although he speaks of some of the Epistles, he did not 
speak of them as of equal authority with the Old Testa- 



THE BIBLE : THE NEW TESTAMENT. 53 

raent. The Pastor of Hermas, written perhaps 130 
A.D., and which is itself found in the Sinaitic Codex, 
contains allusions to the words of Jesus; but it has no 
quotations, and does not recognize any book of the New 
Testament as sacred " Scriptures." The writer of Bar- 
nabas makes one apparent quotation from Matthew, but 
Dr. Davidson considers its genuineness doubtful. Nei- 
ther Ignatius nor Polycarp makes any reference to the 
Four Gospels. Justin Martyr (150 A.D.) quotes passages 
which may be found in the synoptic Gospels, but he also 
quotes from other writings not found in our New Testa- 
ment, without any suggestion of special authority in 
either case. He also quotes from " Memoirs of the Apos- 
tles," showing that even at his day there were ancient 
writings which had not yet assumed their later form ; 
but he does not apply to even these the title " Sacred 
Scriptures." Papias directly declares that Mark's Gos- 
pel is " incomplete and without order," and puts the oral 
tradition of the day above written books. This is enough 
to suggest what the Fathers thought of the New Testa- 
ment writings. Some individuals endeavored to fix a 
canon for themselves. In the last half of the second 
century, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian 
each made a canon for himself. But Irenaeus left out 
Hebrews, Jude, James, II. Peter, and HI. John. Clem- 
ent cited Barnabas as an Epistle, and called the Pastor 
of Hermas divine. Tertullian's canon only included as 
authoritative the Gospels, Acts, thirteen Epistles of Paul, 
the Apocalypse, and I. John. Much importance has 
been attached to the canon of Muratori, which was sup- 
posed to have been made 170 A.D. This, however, was 
not discovered till about 1740 in the Ambrosian Library 



.">! THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

at Milan. The fragment is defective both at the begin- 
ning and at the end. It speaks of such books as the 
Epistle "to the Laodiceans and to the Alexandrians," 
and leaves out Hebrews, I. and II. Peter, and James. 
Theophilus of Antioch, 180 A.D., is the first who refers 
to the writings as sacred and inspired. The most com- 
plete canon made by any individual is that of Eusebius 
in 340 A.D. ; and even he leaves out the Apocalypse, 
and divides the rest into writings "generally received" 
" controverted" and " heretical." 

It must have been evident to you, in this survey, that 
there were, in the early Church, many other writings 
as well as those we now have in our New Testament. 
Time will not permit me to give a catalogue of all these 
writings. There were two kinds of apocryphal writ- 
ings, — those which were by many of the Fathers con- 
sidered as sacred as the books at last admitted into the 
canon, and those which were never considered specially 
sacred by any sect. 

It is now time for me to sum up our observations on 
this point. I could have said much more, but the facts 
would only have been in the same direction. First, then, 
we find that there was no such thing as our present New 
Testament, authorized by any council, till 363 A.D. 
Back of that, the first single church Father, who even 
approximated to our present canon, was an unreliable 
historian, Eusebius, as late as 340 A.D.; and he left out 
our Apocalypse. Not one single book of our New Tes- 
tament was called "Scriptures" by any Christian Father 
until 170 A.D.; and there was no collection of New Tes- 
tament literature like the present one, supposed to pos- 
sess divine authority, until near the close of the second 



THE BIBLE : THE NEW TESTAMENT. 55 

century. Up to the time of Eusebius, other books, like 
those of Clement and Barnabas, were read with just as 
much belief in their authority as those in our present 
canon. Our solid New Testament is therefore found 
to rest on the arbitrary decision of a council held at 
least three hundred years after Jesus. That decision 
rests largely on the opinions of Eusebius ; back of that, 
every man made a canon for himself ; back of that lies 
the chaos, into which we must now enter. 

III. We come now to our next step backward in the 
history of the New Testament. This point will be the 
last of our investigation, and it is quite important. "We 
will consider now whether there is anything about the 
history and authorship of the individual books them- 
selves, which forces us to accept them as the Word of 
God or the teachings of Jesus. Or, to put it in plainer 
words, even if we have no rounded, complete canon be- 
fore the time mentioned, is there not enough authority 
in the single books of Matthew and Mark and John, and 
Romans and Galatians, and all the others, to make us 
accept them as authoritative records? Now, in order 
to answer that question in the affirmative, it is necessary 
to show that these several books of the New Testament 
were written by such men and at such a time as to as- 
sure us that they contain records that are infallible con- 
cerning even the teachings and life of Jesus. Or, to 
put it negatively, if none of these were written by any 
man who ever saw or heard Jesus, if they were not in 
existence until so late a date that they could not have 
been written by eye-witnesses, we cannot have an infal- 
lible record. To that subject let us direct our thoughts 
a little. On the most of the books of the New Testa- 



50 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

ment, I shall be very brief, merely making necessary 
statements, as I wish to dwell as much as possible on es- 
sential points. Let us begin then with the Epistles of 
Paul. 

There are fourteen Epistles attributed to Paul in our 
version. Of these, only four are universally acknowledged 
by scholars to be his writings. These four, then, — Rom- 
ans, I. and II. Corinthians, and Galatians, — we may accept 
as the writings of Paul, without any discussion. There 
are six more, over which there is a great difference of 
opinion, all of them being accepted as Paul's with much 
doubt by the most careful critics. These are Ephesians, 
Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, and I. and II. Thes- 
salonians. Now, if we could take the time, we could 
discover the reason why some of these six, if not all, 
are not likely the writings of Paul. Even a writer so 
cautious in regard to the New Testament as W. Robert- 
son Smith says that it would demand considerable ex- 
planation to show that Colossians and Ephesians have 
any relation to the other Pauline Epistles. It is only 
necessary here, however, to suggest how scholars come 
to some of their conclusions. Knowing that titles are 
often given to books without any original authority, 
but simply to give them dignity, they begin to exam- 
ine their contents. Then, by examination, they discover 
that the style and general teaching of such books as 
Ephesians and Colossians are so different from the ac- 
cepted writings of Paul as to make it improbable that 
they were written by the same person. It is, however, 
not absolutely necessary, for our investigation, to settle 
this question here either way. But, admitting that these 
six books may possibly have been written by Paul, we 



the bible: the new testament. 57 

have now ten Pauline Epistles, none of them written 
earlier than 58 A.D. The other four Epistles which 
bear his name — that is, the letters to Timothy and Titus 
and the Epistle to the Hebrews — are most certainly not 
the writings of Paul. The general style of the pastoral 
Epistles is different from that of Paul, so also is much 
of the teachings. References are made to heresies 
which did not exist until after Paul's day. Davidson 
thinks that the author of them was a Pauline Christian, 
who lived at Rome during the first part of the second 
century. In regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is 
only necessary to say that it was not accepted as genu- 
ine by the early Christian Fathers. It was never re- 
ceived positively into the canon by a council, as one of 
the fourteen Epistles of Paul, until the one at Carthage, 
419 A.D. ; and, in the oldest manuscript, Paul's name is 
not attached to the title. We have then at most only 
ten Epistles which it is at all likely were written by Paul, 
and some of them are in doubt. The authors of the 
other four are unknown. 

The Epistle of James comes next in order. This was 
not received as canonical until 397 A.D. It is without 
doubt one of the most beautiful and true writings in the 
New Testament. It upholds in general a strict and con- 
sistent morality in opposition to an exaggerated faith, 
but no one knows what James was the author. 

The I. Epistle of Peter has been a subject of contro- 
versy among scholars. The internal evidence is all 
against the Petrine authorship. The letter assumes to 
be written from Babylon; but whether that means 
Rome as a mystical Babylon, or Babylonia, there is no 
evidence that Peter was ever in either place. The best 



58 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

evidence against the theory that it was written by- 
Peter is that it was written in the best Greek, while his 
native dialect was Aramaean. It is well known, too, 
from Paul's writings, that Peter leaned toward a Jewish 
Christianity ; that is, a Christianity with the old forms. 
As we shall see, there was undoubtedly a controversy 
in the early Church between the Jewish Christians, 
headed by Peter and James, and the liberals headed by 
Paul. But this Epistle is written in the Pauline spirit, 
and was therefore likely written by some one who 
wished to reconcile the two parties and make Peter 
seem to uphold the broader theology. Westcott finds 
no trace of it before 170 A.D. The II. Epistle of Peter 
was rejected by nearly all the early Fathers. Even ac- 
cording to Jerome, it was not believed to be the writing 
of Peter ; and it was only accepted as canonical in the 
fourth century. 

When we come to the I. Epistle of John, we are 
utterly at sea. It bears the title "John," but nobody 
knows what " John." The Epistle itself gives no inter- 
nal proof on the question. The best critics do not agree 
among themselves. Perhaps the weight of authority is 
toward the conclusion that the same author wrote this 
Epistle and the Fourth Gospel, but the conclusion is 
equally strong that such an author did not write the 
Apocalypse. But, where there is no positive proof, we 
cannot spend time in conjecture. The II. and III. Epis- 
tles of John do not assume to be written by the apostle, 
but by some elder or presbyter, probably John of Ephe- 
sus. They were long refused a place among the sacred 
Scriptures, and were not generally accepted by the 
Fathers. 



the bible: the new testament. 59 

The Epistle of Jude was perhaps written by Jude, 
the brother of Jesus, or some one representing him. 
That it was not by the apostle of that name is evident 
from the manner in which he speaks of the apostles, as 
if he were not one of them. Davidson places its date 
about 80 A.D. ; but there is only evidence to show that 
it was written in the " last times," after the most of the 
apostles were dead, and the exact date cannot be fixed. 
It is at best but a short Epistle, and throws little light 
on the general teachings of Jesus. 

The last book of the New Testament is the Apoca- 
lypse, called in our version "The Revelation of St. 
John." Justin Martyr wrote of " a certain man whose 
name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who 
prophesied, by a revelation made to him," of certain 
future events. Both Clement and Origen, to whom its 
doctrines were distasteful, attributed this book to the 
apostle. There is no doubt that many of the early 
Christians expected a speedy second coming of Jesus. 
That hope is the best expressed in this writing. But as 
Jesus did not return there arose at last a willingness 
to throw doubts upon the genuineness of this book. 
Davidson says that there is as good external authority 
that John wrote this book as for any of the Epistles of 
Paul. But all we need to notice is that it was received 
in the early Church as the writing of an apostle, on bet- 
ter evidence than that of any other book, excepting, 
perhaps, the first four Epistles of Paul. 

We come next to the Acts of the Apostles, or, as one 
manuscript has it, "Acting of the Apostles." This is 
one of the most interesting books of the New Testa- 
ment, and, if true history, would settle forever the ques- 



60 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

tion of miracles affirmatively. But it contains perhaps 
as little historical accuracy as Chronicles in the Old Tes- 
tament, and was written for the same essential reason, 
in order to make a history to suit a theory. The Tubin- 
gen critics, agreeing here with Strauss, start with the 
philosophical axiom that any record which contains an 
account of miracles, by that very fact proves itself un- 
historical. According to that axiom, the Acts are 
proved unhistorical without any other criticism, because 
not only does the book contain accounts of miracles of 
the most impossible kind, but these miracles were per- 
formed not even by Jesus, but by men like Peter and 
Paul. We need not here settle this question in this 
way, but can simply take up the external and internal 
evidence. The book is not a record of the actions of 
the apostles, but principally of two men, Peter and 
Paul. It is generally believed that the book was writ- 
ten by the same person as the third Gospel, but that is 
no proof that it was written by Luke, the companion of 
Paul. The first direct evidence of the existence of such 
a book is contained in a letter of the churches of Vienne 
and Lyons, A.D. 177. No reference is made to Luke as 
its author until near the close of the second ceDtury, 
when it is referred to by Irenaeus. After that, other 
Fathers refer to it as associated with the name of Luke; 
that is to say, at and after the close of the second cen- 
tury. It could not have been written before 120 A.D., 
long after the death of Luke. There are internal evi- 
dences that it is not reliable history. Let me suggest 
a fact or two. We have accepted Galatians as reliable; 
but, if it is reliable, the Acts is unreliable. In Galatians, 
Paul says that after he was converted he did not go to 



the bible: the new testament. 61 

Jerusalem for three years, but went into Arabia; but in 
Acts it is written that he went up at once to the breth- 
ren, and began to preach. 

In Acts, we find speeches from Peter and Paul almost 
in the same language: in Galatians, we find that the 
apostles were suspicious of Paul, and that Paul with- 
stood Peter to the face, because he was a time server 
and tried to compromise with the formalism of the 
Jewish Christians. From Paul's writings, we learn that 
there were two parties in the early Church. The Jew- 
ish party was headed by Peter and James: it wished 
to preserve the old Jewish forms in the early Church. 
Paul was the head of a liberal party, who believed in 
one universal Church, in which there was to be no dis- 
tinction between the Jew and Greek, and in which the 
believer was to stand forth in the liberty of Christ, free 
from all form. All through Paul's writings, we learn that 
there was a progressive and a conservative tendency in 
the early Church. We learn that there were divisions, 
and that one said he was of Paul, and another that he 
was of Peter, and another that he was of Christ. But, 
long years after, a writer wishes to break down these 
divisions ; and so he writes the Acts to show that Peter 
and Paul were in sympathy. This writer of Acts per- 
haps took up some traditions and some written records, 
and edited them in such a way as to have a pacifying 
effect on the Church of the second century. Perhaps 
he had before him a written record of some companion 
of Paul, as a portion of the book is written in the third 
person and a portion in the plural "we." The "we" 
portions may have been from the diary of some com- 
panion of Paul, and incorporated into the other parts 



62 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

of the book. There is a basis of fact in the reported 
travels of Paul ; but when we read speeches from men 
of such individuality as Peter and Paul, full of the 
same commonplace, we have a suspicion that they were 
made largely by the editor himself. 

We now approach the inner citadel of this New Tes- 
tament, and the part most sacred to all who honor Jesus. 
Let us begin with the Gospel of John, or, as critics call 
it, "The Fourth Gospel." Now, the importance of this 
Gospel lies in this : that, if it is indeed a Gospel written 
by an apostle who was a companion of Jesus, it is inval- 
uable as a record of the life and sayings of that great 
teacher. It has always been considered, too, by many, 
the most spiritual and interesting of all the Gospels, and 
by some has been called "The Heart of Christ." But 
the important question for us to consider here is 
whether or not it is the writing of the apostle who 
lived and died during the first century. The first con- 
spicuous fact we have on the subject is that Justin 
Martyr, who wrote about 150 A.D., never mentions any 
such Gospel or any other Gospels ; that is to say, the 
most prominent of the Christian Fathers, who is con- 
tinually quoting from the sayings of Jesus, knows no 
Gospel written by the Apostle John. Justin does refer 
to " Memoirs of the Apostles," thus showing that there 
were certain records in existence from which he quoted ; 
but he makes no allusion to our Gospels. 

It is well known that there were many Gospels in 
existence in the early Church. There were the Gospel 
of the Hebrews and the Gospel of Peter, and many 
others which have not been preserved to us, but no Gos- 
pel of John, prior to Justin Martyr. Moreover, Justin 



THE BIBLE : THE NEW TESTAMENT. 63 

quotes expressions of Jesus which are not in our Gos- 
pels at all, which would be inconsistent if he had some 
such canonical Gospel as that of "John" before him. 
The first writer who mentions a Gospel of John is 
Theophilus, who did not write before 170 A.D. Efforts 
have been made to show that "Barnabas," the "Pastor 
of Hermas," and " Polycarp " use language found in the 
Fourth Gospel ; but, as they do not refer to any such 
Gospel, it only implies that there were original tradi- 
tions which they all quoted more or less. But, as E. A. 
Abbott well suggests, if this Gospel was written by 
"the disciple whom Jesus loved," it is strange that 
Justin quotes fifty passages which may be found in 
Matthew for one that can be found in the Fourth Gos- 
pel. IrenaBus, at the close of the second century, con- 
demns the misuse of the Fourth Gospel ; but, if it ex- 
isted in Justin Martyr's day, it shows that either he did 
not know of its existence or did not consider it reliable. 
As Justin Martyr speaks of "Memoirs of the Apostles," 
and never of John's Gospel, as his teachings show less 
development than this Gospel, it follows that either he 
did not know of such a Gospel, or else did not consider 
it the work of an apostle. Now, I have intentionally not 
taken my statements from the most radical writers of 
our day, but from Christians. One of the most careful 
but radical writers of our day, the author of Super- 
natural Religion, has examined every extant passage 
of any writer who lived between 70 A.D. and 170 A.D., 
and has proved that no writer quotes from any such 
work as our four Gospels, much less from the Fourth 
Gospel. Matthew Arnold, who does not agree with all 
the conclusions of Supernatural Religion, says that 



64 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

the author has absolutely proved his case. That mat- 
ter, he says, is forever settled, that up to 170 A.D. there 
is no evidence that any Gospel attributed to John was 
in existence. Some critics have attempted to reply to 
Supernatural Religion; but they utterly fail to show 
a single error in the author's main argument, in regard 
to lack of reference in the Christian Fathers to the 
Johannine authorship.* Moreover, the internal evidence 
against John's authorship is even stronger. Apologists 
claim that they find passages in Justin Martyr similar 
to those in the Fourth Gospel, although forced to admit 
that Justin does not mention John. But similar pas- 
sages to those found in both the Gospel and Justin can 
be found in the writings of Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, 
who wrote not far from 40 A.D. That is, Philo uses 
expressions about the personification of "Wisdom and 
about the " Logos " (the " Word ") which are almost 
literally found in the Fourth Gospel and Justin. Jus- 
tin did not quote from the Fourth Gospel, but the pre- 
tended John and Justin both quoted from Philo. Philo 
was an Alexandrian Jew ; that is, he knew the Hebrew 
literature about the personification of Wisdom, and the 
Greek theory of the Logos, the emanation from Deity. 
In his mind, those two theories combine. The Logos 
or Wisdom is the outward expression or revelation of 
essential Deity. Along comes some writer afterward, 

♦Since writing the above, a scholarly book, entitled History of Chris- 
tian Religion to A.D. 200, by Charles B. Waite, has come into my posses- 
sion. The author has examined every passage of the Fathers relating to 
this question, and concludes that not one of the Gospels was written 
before the second century. He says in support of his positions : " A single 
well-attested passage from any writer would disprove the assertion. Why 
is no such passage produced? Simply because it cannot be found." 



THE BIBLE I THE NEW TESTAMENT. 65 

and wants to show in the Fourth Gospel that the 
"Logos" is Jesus himself. To put it in the plainest 
words, the Fourth Gospel is the philosophy of Philo 
applied to Jesus by some advanced Christian. That is 
the best evidence that John never wrote it. He was 
a Jewish Christian convert without education. The 
Fourth Gospel is full of the Greek philosophy, and 
was written by a learned Christian, who applied the 
Alexandrian philosophy to Jesus. John was too nar- 
row to take in such a philosophy. We learn from Poly- 
crates that John was accustomed to wear the Jewish 
mitre, thus showing that he was not freed from narrow 
Judaism. We have already seen that there is good 
authority that the belief existed in the early Church 
that John wrote the Apocalypse. But the writer of the 
Apocalypse did not write the Fourth Gospel. It is not 
essential, however, to show that John wrote the Apoca- 
lypse ; for, even if he did not, it would not prove that 
he wrote the Gospel. Moreover, if the utterances re- 
ported in the Fourth Gospel are true reports from Jesus, 
theu the other three Gospels are unreliable. The long, 
labored sentences of the first do not agree with the 
short, terse utterances of the synoptics. Justin says of 
the sentences of Jesus : " Brief and concise were the 
sentences he uttered, for he was no sophist, but his 
word was the power of God"; but the sentences in the 
Fourth Gospel are not brief and concise, but long and 
intricate. Moreover, it is not possible to tell where 
Jesus ends and the editor begins. The writer of the 
Fourth Gospel never mentions the name of John, but 
only the disciple whom Jesus loved. But this assumed 
modesty is surely not that of the son of Zebedee, for ac- 



bb THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

cording to the records, Jesus reproved the two brothers 
once for their audacity. For these and other reasons, 
the Fourth Gospel was not written by John, but by 
some advanced thinker not much before 150 A.D., who 
wrote under the guise of the name of an apostle, in order 
to give his writings authority. 

The first three Gospels are called Synoptic Gospels, 
because they take a " view together." They have the 
same general teaching, although differing essentially 
from the Fourth Gospel. There is a great difference 
of opinion as to which Gospel has the precedence, some 
thinking that Mark is the original document, and others 
that Mark is a compilation from the other two. This 
point, however, is not essential. The point that is es- 
sential is that the first Christian writer to connect our 
present Gospel with the name "Matthew" was Appolli- 
naris, Bishop of Hierapolis, 178 A.D. There are pas- 
sages quoted like those in this Gospel, before that time, 
but this is the first actual reference. Now, we know 
from the early Fathers that Matthew did write some 
Scriptures. Papias, about 150 A.D., says Matthew com- 
posed some " oracles in the Hebrew dialect." But the 
best Greek scholars, since Erasmus, say that our Gospel 
is not a translation, and must have been written in 
Greek. Our present Greek Gospel was not therefore 
written by Matthew ; but Matthew probably wrote some 
discourses in the Hebrew tongue, and some unknown 
writer has used them and other traditions, and given 
the name of Matthew to his book. 

When we come to examine the authority for our 
second Gospel, we do not find any distinct reference to 
any writings by Mark before Papias, 150 A.D. Now, 






the bible: the new testament. 67 

Papias writes that Mark wrote down the sayings of 
Peter without orderly arrangement, and in the Hebrew 
or Aramaic dialect. But this does not refer to the 
present Gospel, which is written with as much order as 
any others, and is written in Greek. The point here is 
that Mark did likely report Peter; but the second 
Gospel is a later document, and only has extracts from 
the original. Irenaeus speaks of what was preached by 
Peter, but he does not call Mark a Gospel. There were 
perhaps writings of Peter which were used partially as 
a basis. 

Before entering upon the examination of Luke's Gos- 
pel, it is important to notice its introduction. The 
author proposes to write an account "in order," and 
implies that many before had taken it in hand to write, 
in order, what was believed among them, and had failed. 
He implies that up to his time there had been no Gos- 
pel made by "eye-witnesses." We have no reason to 
believe anything more, however, from the fact that it 
is called Luke, than that some one used that name in 
order to give the book authority. The earliest Fathers 
have no quotations from it, and make no allusion to any 
such Gospel. Irenasus, near the close of the second cen- 
tury, is the first writer who mentions such a Gospel. 
The book itself does not even state that Luke wrote it. 
It is probably made up of a variety of documents. I 
have taken care not to build any argument upon uncer- 
tainties, and have therefore not given the dates of the 
three synoptics. Critics differ most radically as to their 
dates, and it would require volumes to discuss such a 
question properly. Some critics fix the date of Matthew, 
for instance, as late as 134 A.D. Davidson dates Mark 



68 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

120 A.D.; and Keim, a conservative critic on this point, 
does not place Luke earlier than 90 A.D., but says it 
precedes Mark and John. I have given you the opin- 
ions of some of the best critics, that they were likely 
compiled during the first quarter of the second century. 
But the point that is essential, and that is absolutely 
proved, is that neither Justin Martyr, nor Polycarp, nor 
Ignatius, nor Clement of Rome, nor any writer before 
150 A.D., makes any allusion to any one of our present 
four Gospels. 

Now, we come to one of the most interesting hypoth- 
eses of modern times in regard to the best records of 
Jesus. This hypothesis has been made to assume defi- 
nite shape by Prof. Edwin A. Abbott, master of London 
School, in his article on " The Gospels " in the Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica, although the principle had been sug- 
gested by others. It is the theory of The Triple Tra- 
dition. We find so much late philosophy in the Fourth 
Gospel as to make it unreliable. But, in examining the 
three synoptics, — Matthew, Mark, and Luke, — we find 
that their writers have all quoted from some pre- 
vious tradition. If we can find, therefore, something 
on which they all agree, we will most likely have 
something from some original source, written or oral. 
Now, in the three Gospels, the very same words and 
phrases are often used in such a way as to show that the 
writers have quoted from some original source. If one 
writer has something which is not in the others, it is 
suggestive of a later growth. But, when three of tin- 
most ancient writers give the same record, we have the 
nearest to the original tradition. The Triple Tradition 
is perhaps the best record men will ever find of what 



THE BIBLE I TIIE NEW TESTAMENT. 69 

Jesus said and thought, but even that is subject to the 
mistakes of reporters. Men did not always understand 
him when alive, much less would they after he was dead. 
But I have no doubt that before many years we will 
have The Triple Tradition edited in such a shape as to 
have in a tangible form what those the nearest to Jesus 
reported of his sayings and doings. 

It is time now to sum up some of the results of our 
investigations. I have told you frankly where there is 
any uncertainty. But do not let my frankness lead you 
to make a mistake. Our argument and conclusion are 
not built upon any of the unsettled questions of schol- 
ars. Our fundamental positions are builded upon unde- 
niable facts. A doubt as to the authorship of some 
single book, or its date, is not so bound up with our in- 
vestigation as to invalidate any conclusion. 

Have we then an infallible record of the life and say- 
ings of Jesus, or, in other words, a revelation from God, 
in our New Testament or a correct translation of that 
New Testament? First, we find that we have no abso- 
lutely correct translation of the ancient writings. We 
go back and find that we have not an authentic and gen- 
uine record of the life and teachings of Jesus. We are 
only sure (even comparatively) that we have a record of 
two men who ever saw Jesus. One of them wrote the 
Apocalypse, the book of all others skipped by all rational 
people when they look to the New Testament authority : 
the other perhaps wrote the letter called Jude, which 
has little about Jesus. We are sure that Paul wrote 
four, and perhaps ten, Epistles. But Paul never saw 
Jesus, and never heard a word from his lips. Paul, it 
is true, says he saw Jesus; but Jesus was dead at the 



70 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

time, and had been for years, and Paul tells us in other 
places what he means by "seeing." lie was once caught 
up into the heavens, and "saw unutterable things.*' 
That is, he was in an ecstatic state, and had grand con- 
ceptions or visions. So also he "saw " Jesus, in the same 
sense; that is, he had an intense consciousness that he 
had the true religion. But he did not have this con- 
sciousness for years, but for a long time persecuted the 
followers of Jesus. Would he have so done, if there 
were proofs undeniable that Jesus had risen from the 
dead? Paul's writings, therefore, are not the words of 
Jesus, much less the word of God. 

The very best record we have, then, is that of the 
unknown writers of the first three Gospels, none of which 
had any historical recognition till after 150 A.D. It is 
true we have found a Triple Tradition which is exceed- 
ingly valuable ; but, as we do not know absolutely who 
are responsible for that tradition, we have nowhere any 
infallible record. 

The New Testament is, therefore, a most precious col- 
lection of the most ancient writings of a religious move- 
ment that has very much affected our civilization and 
lives. Although it does not equal the Hebrew Scriptures 
in literary style or intellectual vigor, it contains some 
of the most sublime precepts and beautiful sentiments. 
It gives the best record we have of a man who, in his 
ideality and his noble, self-sacrificing spirit, has won the 
hearts of men. 

Now let us take just a glance at the Revised Version. 
Certain English clergymen began to revise the New 
Testament, and at last asked the aid of American 
scholars. We have now the result of their labors. Of 



the bible: the new testament. 71 

course, auy man who wants the best translation of such 
an original will more likely use the version of our best 
modern scholars. We have better scholars now than 
lived in 1611, and besides have older manuscripts. Just 
as we would wish the best translation of Homer or the 
best reading of Shakspere, so should we seek the best 
version of these ancient writings. We cannot how- 
ever become entirely enthusiastic over the revision. 
In the first place, our American scholars were never 
anything more than an advisory committee ; that is, the 
English committee was the court of last resort. You 
will find an appendix to the revision, showing that in 
many places our American revisers were not satisfied. 
Fortunately, the titles of chapters have been thrown 
out, and the arbitrary divisions into chapters have been 
omitted ; but, against the wish of our revisers, English 
conservatism prevailed, and the " Saint " is placed before 
the proper names in the Gospels ("Saint Matthew," for 
example) without the authority of the best manuscripts. 
But there was too much respect, in the beginning, to old 
prejudices. It is not, and does not assume to be, a new 
translation from original documents, but only a revision 
of a revision made in 1611. But this new translation is 
to do an immense amount of good in many directions. 
We need not expect that it will obliterate all doctrines 
contrary to our modern ideas, because there is no evi- 
dence that the original ideas were correct. But some 
corrections are made, as we have seen ; and it is throw- 
ing some light into this doctrine of infallibility. For 
instance, we hear much about following the Word of 
Christ. And yet there is not much doubt that Jesus 
never had a doxology to his "Lord's Prayer," although 



72 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

orthodox believers to-day are becoming angry, and are 
declaring that they will use that doxology. That is to 
say, they are not so anxious, after all, for the Word of 
Christ, as to say over a doxology that was undoubtedly 
interpolated by the Catholic Church.* So it is not Jesus 
they love, after all, so much as tradition. Another ben- 
efit of the new version is that it is bound to break down 
the blind worship of a book. Men are beginning to 
realize that, if their Bible can be revised, after all it 
cannot be so very infallible. This book-worship has 
been one of the greatest obstacles in the way of human 
progress; but the new revision is teaching men that the 
so-called Word of God is a human composition, and they 
will soon refuse to submit to be terrified and threatened 
by some wild assertion of sensational preachers, taken 
from a book. 

We began to examine a single book. Our conclusion 
is that this is not a book, but two collections of writings 
bound together, without any logical reason, — not even 
two books, but a collection of fragments of literature, 
gathered up during hundreds of years of an uncivilized 
and credulous age. It has long been asserted that there 
is unity in the Bible. But it is only the unity of the 
literature of the same people. There is not unity of 
doctrine : there is absolute contradiction in statement. 

*The Church known in history as the Roman Catholic. It is acknowl- 
edged on all hands that the doxology was not in the most ancient version, 
but it was in such ancient versions as the iEthiopic. the Armenian, the 
Gothic, and the Syriac. It was not an interpolation, therefore, of the his- 
torical Protestant Church, which only dates from the sixteenth century. 
The fact that it is not in the Vulgate proves nothing, as that was only de- 
clared the only canonical version at the Council of Trent, 154G A.D. The 
only church there was, was the Catholic, and it interpolated the doxology 
in the versions named. 



the bible: the new testament. 73 

If there is a unity between the Sun-worship of the 
Old Testament and the worship of the All-Father of 
Jesus, then there is unity ; between offering up a son to 
appease the wrath of Jahveh and living by faith, then 
there is unity, but otherwise there is no unity. There 
is evidence of development, but not unity. There is no 
more inherent reason for binding the Old and New Tes- 
taments in the same volume than there would be for 
binding in the same book the decisions of the Parlia- 
ment of Charles 1. and a Revolutionary Congress in 
America. 

But men may ask, "What have you left, when you 
have no more an infallible Word of God ? " What have 
we left? Well, in the first place we have left all that is 
true and beautiful in this old Bible. If there is a song 
or a poem, or a precept or a proverb or a legend, that 
we can use to make us lead sweeter, fuller lives, we have 
that left. But, above all, we have left the real, infallible 
word of truth. That word is written on the rock, im- 
bedded beneath the eternal hills, as read by the geolo- 
gist ; it is written in the natural penalties and suffering 
of those who transgress the laws of their nature; it is 
written in all human history and experience ; it is writ- 
ten in all true law books and in all real poems, in all 
hearts that ever felt the thrill of love, in all books of 
science which teach the law of heredity, — written along 
nerve cells, and in the blood-red letters of sickness and 
despair. That word is in the air we breathe, it is the 
utterance or revelation of eternal verities, written some- 
times in ink and sometimes discovered by experience ; 
and it is, in one sentence, that this is a Universe of Nat- 
ural Law, and that the path of righteousness is the path 
of peace. 



MIRACLES. 

In the very beginning, we must understand exactly 
what we mean by a miracle. If you were to talk about 
the incredibility of miracles to many people, they would 
reply to you that perhaps there might be some higher 
law, in consistency with which something wonderful 
had been performed. Now, what they say may be true: 
only such a phenomenon would not be a miracle, because 
a miracle is something not in consistency with higher, 
or any other kind of, laws. No thoughtful man denies 
that there are unexplained things in the universe. No 
thoughtful man denies that there may be laws which 
have not yet been fully discovered. But it is not likely 
that all this controversy has been going on for ages over 
nothing. A miracle in the theological sense, however, 
stands for something over which men do differ, and that 
too most radically. It is the one word which separates 
the rationalist and the traditionalist, superstition and sci- 
ence. To assert, therefore, that Hume's essay on mira- 
cles is founded on a false definition, is to overlook the 
fact that there was just such a doctrine in the Church 
of his day as the one he defined. 

The most brief definition, and one as true as any so 
brief can be, is that given by Hume, that " a miracle is 
a violation of the laws of nature." To show that this 
is the orthodox idea, let me quote from the article by 



MIRACLES. 75 

Prof. J. H. Seelye, in Johnson's Cyclopaedia: "A miracle 
is a sensible event wrought by God in attestation of the 
truth. ... A miracle is not simply an extraordinary event 
which, however unfrequent, occurs through the regular 
action of the same forces that produce the ordinary 
events in nature, . . . but it is an event which nature by 
its own action never icould have brought forth, and for 
which the power of God alone is adequate. It is ... a 
new beginning, which rises at once from an almighty fiat. 
... It shows a new force introduced into nature, by which 
nature is checked and changed. A miracle may be de- 
fined, therefore, as a counteraction of nature by the 
author of nature." 

I give you this from one of the most learned ortho- 
dox theologians of our day, to show you that I am not 
wasting my time over something that is indefinite, but 
that a miracle is the very thing Hume declared it to 
be, and that it is still considered fundamental to believe 
in it. 

Let me illustrate the difference between a mystery 
and a miracle. It is a mystery how food taken into the 
body at last culminates in thought and love and energy. 
It is not a miracle, however, because it is not contrary 
to any law, but is in exact consistency with the laws of 
being. It would be a miracle if any man could think or 
love after his bodily organism had ceased to act because 
of a lack of proper nourishment. It is a mystery why 
man lives at all ; but it is not a miracle, because it is in 
consistency with a well-proved law of the universe that 
life should culminate in humanity. Death is a mystery, 
but it is not a miracle, because it is a law that there shall 
at last be a disintegration of all animal organism. It 



76 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

would be a miracle for any man not to die, because death 
is a law of mankind. 

There is very much confusion on this question. Meo 
assume, for instance, that the creation of the world is 
a miracle, and therefore that miracles are, or may be, 
true. They say that there have been successive crea- 
tions of animals, and that these at least are miracles. 
But here is a double error, — an unfounded statement 
and a false conclusion. Nobody knows that the world 
was created. We do know that there have been no suc- 
cessive creations of animals or vegetables. There have 
never been any suspensions of a regular law. What we 
do know is that the world is. Of its ultimate origin, no 
man knows anything. We know that it has reached its 
present form by a regular law, and that by natural de- 
velopment, and not by special creations, all animals and 
vegetables have originated. This is one of the very best 
illustrations of the popular method of proving miracles 
by something which is assumed to be miraculous, but is 
not. The existence of the world and the development 
of animals are mysteries that we cannot fully under- 
stand ; but they are not miracles, because no law was sus- 
pended and no new power interposed. The power was 
in the universe all the time, that at last caused a world 
and animals ; but it was not put into it. 

A rare event is not a miracle. It is a comparatively 
rare occurrence for a comet to appear in the heavens. 
So rare was it in the past that man considered the ap- 
pearance of a comet as miraculous, and as a portent of 
some great event. But, though a comet is still consid- 
ered more wonderful than a star, yet we now know that 
both comet and star are guided by what we call natural 
law. 



MIRACLES. 77 

Again, ignorance is not a proof of the miraculous, but 
rather the contrary. Any event is not miraculous merely 
because the people who observe it at the time may not 
understand it, and therefore call it so. Many of our 
modern discoveries are still not understood by many 
people, and are not even understood in essence by their 
discoverers. If their law, however, is discovered by any 
man, they are not miracles, but only wonders. We need 
not stop here to notice that all miracles, so called, have 
occurred in ages of ignorance, or among ignorant people 
in ages of intelligence. The wonderful events, however, 
are not miracles, if they are ever explained by intelligent 
men, in consistency with some law. Here is a fact which 
many people overlook. They suppose, if we deny the 
miracles of the past, that we charge the writers of the 
records with intentional falsehood. But this does not 
necessarily follow. They may have believed there were 
miracles ; but we, with more facts before us, exjDlain the 
strange accounts in consistency with law, not doubting 
their sincerity in many cases. Here, then, we have 
something distinct before us for our consideration. 
Miracles are a suspension of the laws of nature or are 
the interposition of some new force which has not be- 
fore acted, and will not act ao;ain according: to a regular 
law. 

Now there is one fact that makes it largely unneces- 
sary to enter at very much length into the abstract ques- 
tion of the possibility of miracles, even if we had the 
time. That fact is that nearly all men to-day deny all 
mimcles, except such as they consider essential to their 
own special belief. That is, the very nature of miracles 
m^kes men deny them in general, because, if they were 



<8 THE GOSPEL <>j law . 

too common, they would prove too many things true, 
the belief of their opponent as well as their own. It 
is assumed, however, by all believers in Christian super- 
naturalism that at least the miracles of the New Testa- 
ment are true for some reason. 

Mr. Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, laid it 
down as a fundamental proposition that a revelation 
was necessary, and that the only way to prove a revela- 
tion true was by miracles. Nearly all the great ortho- 
dox writers in England have affirmed that Christianity 
had to be proved by miracles. Scholarly orthodox the- 
ology in this country affirms the same. Dr. Seelye, 
whom I have already quoted, declares that the Christian 
religion had to be proved by miracles. The Bible, he 
says, differs from all other books in that it claims to 
be a miraculous revelation. This may be fairly said 
to be the popular theology of the Church. 

But there is another phase of belief on this question 
which is becoming quite popular. Modern scholarship 
has made so many inroads into the argument from mir- 
acles, as the ]jroof of Christianity, that many feel it is 
not possible, or perhaps safe, to found the system upon 
such a doubtful basis. Still, they essentially maintain 
the miraculousness of Christianity. They hold the mir- 
acles just the same, only they say now that miracles do 
not prove the superiority of Jesus, but that the superi- 
ority of Jesus proves the miracles. It is largely a ques- 
tion of feeling or experience. Dr. Clarke, in criticising 
the orthodox writers, says that it is not safe to rest 
Christianity on the miracles, but he still believes in 
many of the miracles. He says: "The orthodox doc- 
trine has been and still is that Christianity rests on 



MIRACLES. 79 

miracles. Our view is that miracles rest on Christian- 
ity." He claims that Jesus is not proved superior by 
the miracles; but, because Jesus is so superior, therefore 
he performed miracles. 

Prof. Stearns, in his inaugural address before the 
Bangor Theological Seminary, took essentially the same 
position. I quote him as a scholar far in advance of the 
system he nominally upholds. The only wonder is that 
he can go so far without going farther. He said: "It 
is impossible to-day to rest the weight of Christianity 
on the external evidence of prophecy and miracles, or 
even on the external fact of the resurrection of Christ. 
Not that these facts are not as true as they ever were. 
They are. . . . But, in the order of our logic, Christianity 
must prove them, not they Christianity. Christianity 
to-day. . . rests the weight of its argument upon the 
religious consciousness of the Church concerning Christ, 
and the personal conviction of the individual believer." 
Now, in passing here, we cannot help but notice the fal- 
lacy on which this theory of miracles rests. The mir- 
acles do not prove Jesus, but Jesus proves them ! But 
where did the Church get this consciousness of such a 
Jesus who is able to suspend the laws of nature or call 
into requisition a new law? Where do men get this 
Jesus? They get him only from the traditional belief 
that he performed miracles. Any kind of a Jesus, ex- 
cept a moral teacher, would never have existed in the 
modern human consciousness, if the belief in his mira- 
cles had not preceded. It is simply reasoning in a circle 
to say that a Jesus who has been turned into a demi- 
god, because of traditions about his miracles, is able to 
perform those miracles ; for it was the supposed miracles 



80 THE GOSPEL OK LAW. 

that made him a demi-god in human thought. Men to- 
day, because of their own feelings about Je arbi- 
trarily that this miracle may be false, but that the other 
one must be true, because one is so much like him and 
another so different from him, thus virtually settling 
everything by their tastes rather than by an appeal to 
facts. Where do they get their historical sense to so 
infallibly settle questions without evidence? Men make 
a Jesus out of the sentiments of progressive nineteenth- 
century manhood, and then make him do in theory what 
he ought to do a priori. 

It is not necessary for us to enter upon the abstract 
question of the possibility of miracles, because the be- 
liever in miracles himself presupposes that this is a uni- 
verse of law. A miracle is something above or contrary 
to law. Then, the natural process must be that every- 
thing works by law. There could be no suspension of 
law, unless there was a law to suspend. The believer in 
miracles no less than the believer in science, therefore, 
presupposes government by law 7 . Men find out law by 
induction. They take up all known isolated facts, and 
reason back from them to a universal principle. Now, 
after a law has been established by an induction, it must 
take a greater amount of evidence on the other side to 
prove that it is ever suspended. Science says that the 
power in the universe, whatever its name or nature, 
works always by laws which are never suspended. The 
believer in miracles says, too, that that power works by 
law, otherwise there would be no law to suspend. It 
is no manner of consequence to assert that God could 
suspend a law. The burden of proof lies with those 
who assert that a law ever is suspended, and that the 



MIRACLES. 81 

divine power works in any other way than according 
to a regular law. All men, I say, believe in law as a 
general principle, otherwise it would be no miracle if it 
were ever suspended. It all comes down then to a ques- 
tion of fact. Have these or other laws ever been sus- 
pended as proofs of Christianity or of the superiority 
of Jesus ? Is there historical proof ? 

Let us observe the moral quality of miracles, even if 
they could be proved true. It is assumed now, by be- 
lievers in miracles, that they are attestations of the 
truthfulness of a system, and the moral superiority of 
the person performing them. Practically, this belief is 
shown in the fact that, if any one doubts the miracles of 
Jesus, he is supposed to necessarily doubt his moral su- 
periority. But miracles have no direct connection, either 
historically or philosophically, with either goodness or 
truth. In the days when all men believed in miracles, 
those miracles were never considered, in themselves, 
either moral or immoral. The Jews and early Chris- 
tians never thought of denying the miracles of other 
religions. They only said that the miracles were the 
work of demons or false gods. Even in the New Testa- 
ment itself, we read that some of the Jews charged Jesus 
with casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub. 
Miracle-working merely proved power ; but it did not 
prove moral power, and consequently was no attestation 
of the truthfulness of a system. It is only a device of 
modern apologists to claim that all other miracles, out- 
side of Christianity, were considered false. The early 
Fathers did not consider them false. The miracles of 
Apollonius were believed in the second century by the 
Christians themselves, and even by the most learned of 



82 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

them. Supposing, therefore, that Jesus 'lid transform 
the world in a good way by his power, it proves nothing 
whatever on the question of miracles. As miracles 
were believed to have been performed by others in that 
day, if Jesus did morally reform society, it must have 
been by something in which he differed from other 
miracle workers. The same lack of connection between 
miracles and morality still exists in many minds. 

Philosophically too, if Jesus were morally perfect and 
superior to all others, it does not follow that he per- 
formed miracles. Miracles are suspensions of natural 
laws. Whatever our ideas about a Deity, or the author 
of the laws of the universe, all thoughtful men believe 
that those laws are moral, and that it would be the most 
moral to submit to them. Even if it were possible then 
to suspend a natural law, it would be no proof of moral 
sujDeriority. A law of the universe must be moral : to 
suspend it, therefore, must be immoral. To attempt 
therefore to perform a miracle is to throw discredit 
upon the natural laws by which the universe works. 
We have some proof from the record that Jesus him- 
self protested against being made a mere wonder- 
worker, and insisted upon the superiority of moral 
principles. 

But the logical value of supposed miracles as a proof 
of Christianity is not at all superior. Even if the re- 
puted miracles were true, — that is, if something hap- 
pened historically, as has been reported, — it would bring 
no intellectual support to Christianity. Any so-called 
miracle of the past, with the exception of resurrections 
from the dead, has been surpassed by natural events and 
discoveries of modern times. What would have been 



MIRACLES. 83 

the surprise of men in the early ages at a steam engine 
or a telegraph, at a conversation carried on between 
Boston and Worcester through a telephone, or that the 
click of a battery in London should almost instantly 
affect the price of wheat in Chicago, at photography 
and mesmerism, at the prediction of the exact time 
when a comet would appear, or a coming storm ? Watt 
and Stephenson and Edison would have been worshipped 
as gods, if they had lived in ancient times. 

Even the reported resuscitations of the dead afford 
no intellectual proof to men in our age. Admitting the 
external fact, men would at once begin to ask for ex- 
planation. Were the persons really dead, and were not 
some natural remedies used to bring back to conscious- 
ness those who may have fallen into some swoon ? I am 
purposely brief on this point, and I do not present it as 
the real explanation for the most of the records of the 
miracles. Something like this was the first natural ex- 
planation of those who began to doubt the miracles, 
while still accepting the external history. This is not 
the explanation of the best scholars to-day. But it is 
worth mentioning to show that reported miracles would 
be no intellectual proof to a man who cares for proof. 
The majority of believers, who are really moral, accept 
Christianity first because they believe in its supposed 
morality, and then they take the miracles for granted. 
These miracles, however, do not really make even them 
believe. There are some people of course who think it 
an evidence of piety to believe a thing because it is ab- 
surd. Like Tertullian, they say, " I believe because it is 
impossible." 

But it is generally assumed that miracles in the time 



84 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

of Jesus were necessary, in order to establish his relig- 
ion. It is a common opinion among Protestants that 
a belief in miracles ceased after the days of the apostles. 
Many a long argument has been formed to show why 
miracles were necessary then and not afterwards. It is 
one of the favorite arguments of such apologists as Paley 
that Christianity is true, because it alone was attested by 
miracles. It seems wonderful, however, how people will 
forget themselves. Men are taught to-day that there 
are special providences even now, and suspensions of 
law in answer to prayer, and instantaneous conversions. 
All these, if true, would be miracles, and yet in the 
same breath we hear it argued that miracles were only 
performed up to the end of the apostolic age. But this 
theory is a device of modern times. The Roman Cath- 
olic is exactly logical in declaring that the Church has 
always had the power to work miracles. I do not say 
that what he says is true, but only that it is logical 
from his premise. Nobody in the early Church ever 
thought the miracles were confined to Jesus and the 
apostles. It was believed by the Fathers, even down 
to Eusebius, that Apollonius of Tyana, who was con- 
temporary with Jesus, performed miracles. One of his 
miracles was very much like one recorded as performed 
by Jesus. It was said that he met a bier of a betrothed 
young maiden, and by touching the bier and saying a 
few words he brought her back to life. He also cast 
out demons, who acted very much like the other 
demons who went into the herd of swine. Simon 
Magus was also a worker of miracles according to the 
belief of even orthodox Christians. They attributed his 
power to demons, but never doubted it. Inside of the 



MIRACLES. 85 

Church, they never thought that miracles had ceased. 
Justin Martyr declared that there were both men and 
women in his day who were endued with extraordinary 
powers. Origen said that the sick were healed in his 
day by using the name of God or Jesus ; and even St. 
Augustine, the ablest of all the Fathers, said that, in 
his own diocese, in two years more than seventy mir- 
acles had been wrought by the relic of the body of 
St. Stephen. In the writings of all the Fathers occur 
accounts of miracles far surpassing those of Jesus and 
the apostles. In the middle ages, the belief in new 
miracles was even stronger. M. Guizot has estimated 
the number of saints in the Bollandist collection as 
about twenty-five thousand, and all these saints won 
their honors by working miracles. Orthodoxy declares 
that the number of miracles became fewer the farther 
away from the apostolic age, whereas the very reverse 
is true. 

The belief has not been confined to Romanism. The 
destruction of the Spanish Armada in the British Chan- 
nel has always been considered by apologists as a mira- 
cle in behalf of Protestantism. It was believed that a 
voice spoke from a wall in the days of Queen Mary, pro- 
claiming the mass to be idolatrous. Witchcraft, which 
was founded on a belief in the miraculous, has been the 
pet theory of Protestants. Down to the days of Queen 
Anne, it was supposed that a sovereign by a touch could 
cure scrofula or king's evil. But of course since the 
Reformation the belief in miracles has been less; and 
even Romanists limit the miraculous more than for- 
merly, under the scientific criticism of our watchful 
age. Up to the Reformation, however, there was 



86 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

never any lack of the reputed miracles; and nobody 
in the Church supposed that they had ceased. 

This of necessity is only the briefest suggestion of the 
history of miracles since the advent of Christianity. All 
testimony, however, would be in the same direction. 
The conclusion is most manifest. Protestants are in 
the habit of denying the miracles of Romanism and 
confining them to the apostles, and then arguing that 
the apostolic miracles are evidential, but not any later 
ones. But there is just as much proof for one class as 
for the other, there are just as many witnesses too for 
the miracles of the middle ages as for those of the early 
Church. We only know about the miracles of Jesus 
and the apostles, because of the testimony of the Fa- 
thers, who preserved ancient writings. But those same 
Fathers have just as positively testified to the reality of 
other miracles. If they told the truth once, they told 
it afterwards; if they were mistaken once, they were 
mistaken about the first miracles, the record of which 
they have preserved for posterity. If miracles are then 
a proof of a religion, Paganism is just as true as Christi- 
anity, Romanism is just as true as Protestantism. 

Paley wants to know T if twelve men should assert the 
fact of a miracle, in a case where it was impossible they 
should be deceived, and should then go to a gibbet rather 
than confess that they were mistaken, whether it would 
not prove the truthfulness of their account. Now, if 
twelve men should assert something which was in direct 
conflict with a law established by the testimony of tens 
of millions of men, we would conclude that the twelve 
men were mistaken or deceived. Nearly every law has 
been proved by the experience or observation of millions 



MIRACLES. 87 

of men, especially the law in regard to death. Twelve 
men would not therefore disprove the law. Besides, 
under certain circumstances, twelve are no better than 
one. What would deceive one might deceive twelve, 
but laws are established by proof beyond the chance of 
deception. The fact of twelve men dying for a belief 
would prove nothing whatever, except that they were 
sincere. Every false religion in the world has had its 
martyrs, and every false cause. If martyrdom were 
proof of a doctrine, Hinduism and Buddhism would be 
better proved than Christianity. If suffering were proof 
of a religion, then Judaism is truer than Christianity, 
because the Jews, in rejecting Jesus, have suffered far 
more than ever the Christians suffered. They have 
been crucified and banished in every Christian country 
in Europe. Paley's assumption of the twelve men, who 
could not be deceived, is purely fictitious too. No 
twelve men have ever testified that they saw certain 
miracles performed by Jesus. "We have already discov- 
ered, in this series of discourses, that not one of the ac- 
counts of the miracles of Jesus was written by an eye- 
witness, and that no one knows positively who wrote the 
four Gospels, and that the " Acts " was the production 
of an after age. Paul and Clement of Rome, who did 
write in the first century, give no testimony concerning 
miracles of Jesus. It was not till after the first century 
that our records of the miracles of Jesus were first com- 
piled ; and the first reported were only those of the heal- 
ing of the sick, which can easily be explained on natural 
principles. Such miracles as those of turning water into 
wine, and the resurrection of a decomposed body were 
not proclaimed even at the beginning of the second cen- 



88 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

tury. There is not a shadow of proof for Prof. Seelye's 
assertion that the Bible is the only book which claims 
to be a miraculous revelation. Such a Bible is purely 
a creation of modern times. The Bible does not even 
pretend to be infallible. It is a collection of isolated 
writings, written by different men, in different a 
without any suggestion of a book called "The Bible." 
But the books which record the miracles were not 
written in the first century, and are therefore no proof 
of the miracles. There is good proof that Paul and 
Clement who did write in the first century believed in 
a spiritual resurrection, a rising from Hades into a 
higher existence; but the bald, literal dogma of a 
Christian resurrection was an aftergrowth. Paley's 
argument, therefore, does not stand the test of inves- 
tigation. No twelve men ever did die in attestation of 
miracles which they saw themselves. The age in which 
the four Gospels were compiled was a credulous one, 
and every wonderful report was readily accepted with- 
out proof. The early Fathers were men who neglected 
the law r s of evidence, despised "the wisdom of this 
world" which would have had some logic in it, and 
often made use of forgeries and spurious writings. The 
whole of the evidence for miracles comes out of an age 
when men were superstitious, when they knew nothing 
of the nature of evidence, when a thing was believed 
because it was impossible, and when honest men were 
so influenced by excitement and fanaticism and fear 
and old superstitions, and the power of overwrought 
imaginations, that they were incapable of making crit- 
ical history. We can see how difficult it is, even now, 
to find out the exact truth of any event; but how 



MIRACLES. 09 

much more difficult it must have been, when there 
were no students of criticism, when writings were made 
that were not read till afterwards, or in places where 
there could be no chance to weigh the evidence, and 
where the masses were in hopeless ignorance ! 

But it is often asked how it happened, if the miracles 
are not true, that Christianity had such an influence over 
those in the surrounding country, how it happened that 
such a multitude of those, who could prove the miracles 
false, were converted to the faith. Well, the answer is 
that it never did happen. That argument is one of those 
stupendous fallacies with which theologians have de- 
ceived people who have not examined the facts. As a 
matter of fact, Christianity did not have a great influ- 
ence over those who had a chance to weigh the evidence 
of the miracles. Even according to the author of "Acts," 
after forty days there were only one hundred and twenty 
believers in Jerusalem. The reputed crowd of converts 
on the day of Pentecost was composed of every nation 
from the countries outside Judea. Even Paul himself 
did not believe for several years. The Jews, who had 
the best chance to decide in the matter, never to any 
large extent embraced the new faith. Supposing we 
reverse the question, and ask how it happened, if Jesus 
performed such miracles, that the Jews as a class never 
accepted him, and that too when they were waiting for 
a Messiah. How does it happen that the masses of the 
Jews never have accepted him to this day? The early 
Church made the most of its conversions outside of 
Judea, in the countries where there was no chance what- 
ever to test the credibility of miracles. But, supposing 
it had happened, what would it prove ? The argument 



90 Tin: GOSPl i. <>i LAW. 

from numbers of converts proves nothing whatever in 
regard to truth. The followers of Buddha are three 
times as numerous as those of Christianity. The re- 
ligion of Mohammed increased far more rapidly than 
that of Christianity. As the majority of men have 
always been idolatrous .and superstitious and ignorant, 
the fact that multitudes accept a faith affords no evi- 
dence whatever of the truthfulness of certain dogmas 
in which they believe. 

But, not to deal too summarily with the miracles, how 
can the records of them be explained ? In the first place, 
a large number of them refer to the casting out of 
demons. But, as we shall discover by examining details 
in a later discourse, the beHef in demons grew from 
the imagination ; and we therefore cannot accept any 
miracles founded on the theory. The demons were sub- 
jective creations, and in some cases the influence of a 
strong personal presence might help to remove a sup- 
posed u possession." Many miracles of healing might be 
explained on the principle of the use of natural remedies, 
or the same power of a strong personal influence. But a 
large majority of the miracles can be explained on the 
mythical theory. Strauss is the father of modern criti- 
cism ; and, although other writers have shown his mis- 
takes, on the subject of miracles the most of them have 
received their inspiration from him, and his theory covers 
very many cases. Baur suggested the historical method 
of treating the New Testament records. Beginning with 
the genuine Epistles of Paul, he detected the historical 
condition that brought into existence many of the 
records. For instance, as there had been a controversy 
between the followers of Peter and Paul, some peace- 



MIRACLES. 91 

maker creates the "Acts," and makes these two men 
perform about the same number of wonderful works. 
There is no one theory, however, that can explain all 
reputed miracles. For the sake of illustration, however, 
let us see how easily the theory of the myth will explain 
many cases. Men, for instance, afterwards wanted to 
show that Jesus was the Messiah of the Old Testament 
scriptures, and miracles would easily grow up out of 
some prophecy or story in these writings. They report 
the resurrection of the dead to life, and so Jesus must 
be made to appear at least equal. The story of Elisha 
and Elijah must be equalled by that of Lazarus. Again, 
out of some symbolic expression, which perhaps Jesus 
used, time and tradition would make history. Jesus 
uttered a parable about a tree that ought to be cut 
down ; and some writer afterwards took up the words, 
and interpreted them as literal history of the miracle of 
the fig-tree that Jesus cursed until it withered away. 
Moses had, according to the record, turned water into 
blood ; and so Jesus must at least, in the popular mind, 
have turned water into wine. Job had represented God 
as one that treadeth the waves of the sea ; and, according 
to a Grecian legend, the hyperborean Abaris possessed 
an arrow by means of which he could cross rivers, and so 
Jesus must walk upon the sea. Jahveh had supported 
Israel with heavenly manna in the wilderness, and Jesus, 
who was often in the country with the crowds, must 
support them by miraculous loaves and fishes. 

Understand I do not give these as positive or exhaus- 
tive explanations. No one theory will cover all the 
cases. Some expression of Jesus, which he meant as an 
illustration, might be taken up and turned literally into a 



92 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

story by a writer in the second century. Jesus perhaps 
said that he was the bread from heaven, meaning his 
truth or character; but some after-writer could easily turn 
that into a miracle of feeding a multitude. Very many 
of the so-called miracles however can be explained on 
the theory of a philosophical myth. That is to say, some 
utterance of Jesus, or some occurrence, or saying, re- 
corded in the Old Testament, would furnish the founda- 
tion for a literal miracle after Jesus was dead. Of 
course, men may insist upon accepting them literally, 
and want no explanation. The only trouble is that, when 
they do, they make Jesus a very inferior person in a 
moral sense, and defy all logic. It would give us little 
respect for Jesus to suppose that he was so governed by 
passion as to literally curse a fig-tree because it had no 
fruit on it in a season of the year when there were no 
figs, or to satisfy his whims by destroying some man's 
herd of swine. The writer of the Fourth Gospel says 
that his first miracle was that of turning water into wine ; 
but, if it were, it is very strange that the writers of the 
other three Gospels, who are supposed to be such good 
witnesses, never heard of that first miracle, or did not 
think it of enough importance to record it. If Lazarus 
were really raised from the dead, it is curious too that 
the writers of the synoptic Gospels do not record it. If 
they are such good witnesses, it is exceedingly wonderful 
that they should not know, or forget to record, one of 
the most wonderful events in the life of Jesus. Very 
strange is it too that, if Jesus could raise people from 
the dead, it should always be some obscure person who 
was never heard of again. Christianity, we hear, is to 
be especially proved by the power of Jesus to raise the 



MIRACLES. 93 

dead ; but we never hear another word of Lazarus, and 
we read of no conversions among the Jews because of 
his resurrection. 

Now, as to the resurrection of Jesus, I have only time 
to try to condense into a few words essential facts. The 
writers of the four Gospels lived as late as the beginning 
of the second century, and therefore knew nothing from 
their own observation about any resurrection of Jesus. 
The Triple Tradition does not give the story of the res- 
urrection in its complete form. The four writers, or 
compilers, contradict each other and themselves, on ma- 
terial alleged facts. The suggestions of after-manufac- 
ture are most apparent. If Jesus rose in a crucified 
body with the marks of the nails in it, and ate broiled 
fish, he did not rise in a spiritual body that could pass 
through a closed door. The only Bible writer however, 
of the first century, that affirmed the resurrection, is 
Paul. But Paul never saw Jesus, except in a subjective 
sense, in which he realized in his own consciousness that 
he was alive. Paul's " seeing " was of the same kind as 
when he thought he was caught up into heaven and saw 
unutterable things; that is, a vision. Besides, we have 
learned historically that Paul believed in a spiritual res- 
urrection. He gives no evidence, in his writings, of 
having even read any historical statement of the bodily 
resurrection, or having even heard of such records as 
the four Gospels. It is true that Paul says Jesus was 
seen of five hundred at once, but this is by no means 
the testimony of five hundred. He does not tell us who 
the five hundred were, or when they saw Jesus, or how 
he "received" the report. It is simply the statement, 
then, of one man, who had heard in some way that five 



94 THE 0O6PEL OF LAW. 

hundred men had seen Jesus after his resurrection. If 
there were any such five hundred, their evidence would 
not be taken in any court to-day, because they never 
saw Jesus die, and could not therefore prove that he 
had not been alive all the time. I think that the evi- 
dence is conclusive that Jesus did really die on the cross, 
but no five hundred witnesses of his after-existence ever 
saw him die. The whole evidence, therefore, is that of 
Paul, who believed, perhaps, that five hundred men knew 
Jesus was alive after his crucifixion, who never saw 
Jesus when alive, who had little or nothing to do with 
his disciples, who protested at other times that he did 
not receive his authority from those disciples, but di- 
rectly from God, whose belief was in a spiritual resur- 
rection, who rejected Jesus many years after his death, 
and who did not write till many years after. But does 
not the marvellous success of Christianity prove the 
truthfulness of the resurrection ? Now, even if the 
success of Christianity is because of a belief in the 
resurrection, it does not prove that belief true. It only 
proves that men believed it true. The success of Mo- 
hammed was largely owing to the fact, perhaps, that his 
followers believed that he was a prophet of God ; but 
that by no means proves their belief true. Facts are 
to be proved by evidence, not by the beliefs of people 
about supposed occurrences. The most stupendous sys- 
tems have been built up upon false beliefs. The numer- 
ical success of Christianity is attributable, perhaps, to 
a belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, together 
with many other causes which are by no means compli- 
mentary or moral. 

But just so far as the influence of Jesus has been 



MIRACLES. 95 

moral, just so far as it has made men purer and better, 
it lias been, not because, but in spite of, all those false- 
hoods and accidents which have tended to obscure his 
moral truth. His real moral power has been because of 
the teaching and character by which he has influenced 
men to obey the laws of the universe, and not because 
he has ever suspended them. Just so far as the atten- 
tion of men has been directed to wonders that at least 
have their counterparts in the feats of legerdemain, just 
so far has it been taken from all those simple, moral 
truths and influences that alone prove any man superior. 
I must conclude with two moral reflections. The first 
is that a belief in miracles tends to immorality. Just so 
far and so long as men believe that natural laws are 
ever suspended, and that causes can ever have anything 
more or less than their legitimate effect, just so long will 
men be tempted to be immoral. Because of a belief in 
miracles, a Pocasset father murdered his child with the 
hope that, as in the case of Abraham, God would at last 
stay his hand. With a professed belief in the special 
controlling power of a Deity, Guiteau murdered a Pres- 
ident. Both of these men have merely carried out the 
literal teachings of the Church in regard to direct and 
miraculous interpositions of God, instead of the teach- 
ings of science, that this is a universe of natural, regu- 
lar laws, where duty is to be discovered by investigation 
and reflection. Because of a belief in miracles, men 
trust in prayer to save society from cholera and dipthe- 
ria and other diseases ; but, if they believed in natural 
law, they would know that poor food, unventilated 
houses, and filthy streets were real causes, and their 
natural removal the real cures. Society will not be re- 



9G THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

funned till men give up their belief in special provi- 
dences, and learn to believe in the immutability of the 
law of natural cause and effect. 

The other reflection is this: that a belief in miracles 
tends to a destruction of faith in the universe. Just so 
long as men believe that this is a world of fiat or chance, 
they can have no faith that has any meaning. But let 
a man be fully persuaded that this is a universe of cause 
and effect, of natural law, and he has confidence in the 
result of his efforts. We can have no faith, if we do not 
feel that certain conduct will invariably produce certain 
effects: we can have no faith, if we believed that the 
prayer of some ignorant man would subvert natural laws 
and causes. 

Mystery there is, but no miracle. Speak of a miracle, 
and men at once think of the dry bones of some saint 
or the tricks of some prestidigitator. The real my st en- 
is in the natural laws of the universe. The real mystery 
was in last night's sunset, when, in the beautiful words 
of Ruskin, " the sky itself " became " one molten, man- 
tling sea of fire," when "every ripple and wave was 
turned into unsullied, shadowless crimson and purple 
and scarlet, and colors for which there are no words in 
language, the intense blue of the upper sky melting 
through it all." The mystery is in the song of the sea 
and the sublimity of mountains, in the clasp of some 
hands and the depths in some eyes, in the sweet babe 
that has floated in from some unknown sea of life, in the 
strange thrill which is caused by pure music, in the 
effect of eloquence, in the personal charm of friend or 
lover, in a universe which at last has produced a Shak- 
spere and Jesus and a Florence Nightingale as well 



MIRACLES. 07 

as a fish or a behemoth, in a cosmos as well as a chaos, 
in a sweet rose as much as in an earthquake. The real 
infidelity is to be unfaithful to the universe, and its 
strange, deep law and power, and to look for miracles 
in the tricks of man rather than in the operations of 
nature. 



GOD. 

Is there a God, a real, eternal power, and can we 
know anything about him or it, and what is the truth 
on this whole subject? These questions must be of most 
profound interest to all men of deep convictions. Every 
man who has become conscious of the mystery in him- 
self and in the universe, of the infinite sweep of things ; 
every man who has ever gazed thoughtfully and in won- 
der up into starry heavens or into the eyes of chil- 
dren, or who knows the real deep pain and agony of 
human life, or has ever stood in hushed and solemn still- 
ness beside a new-made grave, must sometimes have 
pondered over the problem whether or not there is a 
Deity, and, if there is, how much can we know of the 
divine nature and character. 

It will be impossible within our prescribed limits to 
do much more than suggest certain fundamental facts 
and principles. Neither have I any ambitious expecta- 
tion of settling this question. The last word upon it 
will never be uttered, and perhaps there is nothing to 
be said but what has been already better expressed than 
it will be again in this age. But it is by faithfulness on 
the part of each man in his own place, and the perpetual 
expression of convictions, that truth will be approached. 

No harm can come from a candid expression of opin- 
ion: the greatest harm must come from the assumption 



GOD. 99 

that any man has absolutely found the final philosophy. 
Our greatest desire ought to be, too, to find as far as pos- 
sible a basis that will be broad enough to admit any facts 
that may yet be discovered, rather than some temporary 
platform where men with unproved traditions may find 
support for their assumptions. Accepting certain facts, 
we must then simply use our reason in interpreting them 
and coming to a conclusion. No man has any moral 
right to assume any superiority because of his opinions 
on this question, unless they are founded on facts. 

We all know that there are teachers who can answer 
all these questions in regard to God in a few moments, 
without one doubt or reservation. They can state a few 
formulas with perfect confidence and with as much pre- 
cision as if it were a mathematical problem, can write at 
the bottom a plain result, " God," with all his character 
and attributes and purposes precisely explained. But, 
for some reason, many of the thoughtful people of our 
age are not satisfied with this church god, and think 
that, when they have it, they have only obtained a word 
with three letters, while the real mystery is as little ex- 
plained as ever. There is also a suspicion in many 
minds that this god of which men talk so flippantly is 
not a being in exact consistency with many well-known 
facts about infinite power and regular law ; and this sus- 
picion is only increased by the methods used to preserve 
a belief in him or it. A Deity who needs some church 
authority or concealment of facts in order to maintain 
his place as the supreme object of worship is not the 
real power which many of our most intelligent men and 
women are seeking. For example, there are many who 
say that, if the Bible is not infallible, they have no proof 



100 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

of a Deity, and therefore they must believe in that 
book. But, for thoughtful men, this is but poor comfort, 
— to build one unproved belief upon another unproved 
assumption. There are very many reasons why the 
teachings of the Church in regard to God afford no satis- 
faction to a man who knows and loves the truth. It may 
be true that it will be a great loss to men, if they give up 
all faith in a Supreme Power. But, to many men of in- 
telligence, the teachings of the Church on that subject 
do not furnish a basis for such a conclusion. Men often 
declare that the intellectual impulse and science of our 
age are gradually leading men away from the belief in 
God. But, if it is the direct effect of the growth of in- 
telligence that men should give up a belief in God, then 
it is also a direct proof that a belief in a certain kind of 
a god is not necessary for human happiness and develop- 
ment. The world has grown in happiness in exact pro- 
portion to the increase of general intelligence. If the 
belief in God can only be preserved by teaching men to 
remain in ignorance, then it will be difficult to make 
thoughtful men acknowledge that such a belief is of any 
real consequence. A belief in a god, as gods have been 
defined in the past, has been a curse to men in innumer- 
able instances. It is so common to hear men declare 
that any kind of a religion is better than none, that it 
may seem strange to assert that a belief in a false god 
has been a hindrance in the way of human happiness, 
although such is the exact truth. One of the first theo- 
ries in regard to a god grew out of a belief in the power 
of the spirits of the dead. When the hero, husband, or 
chief died, his departed ghost still demanded recognition 
as a god. His other self was absent, and needed the 



GOD. 101 

same things as when in the body. Wives, therefore, of- 
fered themselves up as sacrifices, in order to be compan- 
ions of the departed ghost or god. If they did not offer 
themselves on an altar, yet, as the departed would need 
the same pleasures as before death, they brought all 
their food and literally starved themselves sometimes, 
in order to lay provisions on his grave. Even according 
to the Hebrew legends, Jephthah could offer up his 
sweet, loving daughter, and Abraham was willing to sac- 
rifice his son in order to satisfy the god. Religion in it- 
self has, in human history, often proved a positive curse 
to the race. It has destroyed more life and happiness 
than all wars of conquest and all natural disease. 
Whole holocausts of victims have been offered up to ap- 
pease or gratify some god or gods. Edwin Arnold has 
interpreted for many in our day what Gautama Buddha 
thought about the gods: — 

" For which of all the gods 
Have power or pity ? Who hath seen them, — who ? 
What have they wrought to help their worshippers ? 
How hath it steaded man to pray, and pay 
Tithes of the corn and oil. to chant the charms, 
To slay the shrieking sacrifice, to rear 
The stately fane, to feed the priests, and call 
On Vishnu. Shiva, Surya, who save 
None, — not the worthiest ? . . . . 
Hath any of my brothers 'scaped thereby 
The aches of life, the stings of love and loss, 
The fiery fever and the ague shake, . . . 
The horrible dark death ? . . . 
Hath any of my tender sisters found 
Fruit of the fast or harvest of the hymn, 
Or brought one pang the less at bearing time 
For white curds offered and trim tulsi-leaves ? 



LQ2 THB GOSPEL 01 LAW. 

Xay: it may be some of the gods are good, 
And evil some, but all in action weak ; 
Both pitiful and pitiless." 

Of course, we cannot but know that it will be said 
that these were false gods, and that if men had only 
worshipped the god of the Church, which is called 
Christian, there would have been a benefit. But that is 
a virtual acknowledgment that any kind of a religion 
is not better than no religion, and that a belief in a god 
does not necessarily result in good. But it is doubtful 
if so-called Christian worship has resulted much better. 
Even here, god-worship has stood in the way of com- 
merce, business, and even of morality. Under the pop- 
ular teaching, men have been taught that it is more im- 
portant to gaze up into the heavens, to offer gifts at 
a church altar, and say formal prayers and sing songs, 
than to study the laws of the universe, find out the 
path of commerce, and seek the most rational good con- 
duct. The Church of history has opposed science and ag- 
riculture and even inventions, and has, at least in theory, 
declared that it was more important to try to appease 
some god by formal services than to build ships and 
houses, or to discover some law of nature. The latest 
declaration is that a belief in a conventional god is more 
important than an acceptance of well-proved scientific 
truth, and that it is better to shut our eyes to some of 
the light of our age, and oppose the theory of universal 
law, than to give up the god of fiats and miracles. The 
most intelligent men of our age are therefore compelled 
again in very honesty, and in the interests of morality 
and human happiness, to deny that religious belief is 



GOD. 103 

necessarily valuable. It all must depend upon the kind 
of a god that is accepted. 

The believers in an inherited theology often take it 
for granted that, when they mention the word " god," 
they have something definite and tangible. They ask 
with perfect assurance, "Do you believe in God?" and 
expect you to give immediately an affirmative or nega- 
tive answer. They take it for granted that all men 
must be on one or the other side of the question, with- 
out making any qualification, and think the word was 
handed directly down out of heaven with an exact 
meaning. Now, in the Anglo-Saxon, " god " means pos- 
sibly "the good," and stands for something compara- 
tively distinct ; but in some languages the word means 
simply "the brilliant," "the shining," in others it has 
the same root as " devil," and has probably come to us 
from the name of Pagan gods. All the way down 
human history, men have put into the word their own 
ideas of power or cause, and their own character, 
whether coarse or refined. Before we can assent to the 
word, therefore, we must know which god is meant. 
Many in our churches assume that at least God really 
showed himself to the Hebrews, and gave them his real 
name, and on this assumption have builded a whole 
theology. 

But we know that no Hebrew ever had any special 
revelations of God or of his name. There is no infalli- 
bility about the Hebrew records ; and, even if the " 1 
am " of the Hebrews was not taken from the Egyptian 
theology, we know that many of the Hebrew names for 
God simply meant power, and were taken from sun wor- 
ship or animal worship. When men ask us, therefore, 



104 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

if we believe in God, we can fairly ask, "Which god?" 
God was originally not " the good," but " the brilliancy," 
the "power," or sometimes "the demon." 

Leaving, however, the simple word, and looking at 
the object of worship, we can see even more plainly that 
men have no right to assume that a belief in a god is 
founded either on truth or righteousness. No god has 
ever come down out of heaven, no god has ever revealed 
himself in a special way. Men have never had so much 
opportunity to discover God as they have to-day. There 
is no positive proof that men have a natural intuition of 
a Deity. There have been tribes discovered with no 
kind of worship, no Deity, no consciousness of a great 
Unknown. Originally, men were only conscious of their 
external coarse existence. The fact that even five thou- 
sand years ago men worshipped one god, comparatively 
pure, in India or in Egypt, does not prove that farther 
back their god-idea had not passed through a previous 
process of development. Renouf, for instance, shows 
that although the Egyptians, thousands of years ago, 
worshipped one as supreme, it was in connection with 
polytheism, suggesting a derivation from a lower form 
of religion. There is positively no evidence that religion 
began in a pure form and then degenerated. Men take 
up their modern conceptions, and put them into the theo- 
ries of ancient man. Undoubtedly, religions which were 
once comparatively pure have sometimes degenerated, 
but that by no means proves that they were not barbaric 
before they ever became relatively pure. Knowing, as 
we do, that man has ascended from a barbaric condition, 
we cannot look to the past for a perfect conception of 
God. If we find that Jesus and Plato and Socrates had 



GOD. 105 

exalted conceptions of Deity, we must not forget that 
humanity had been developing for tens of thousands of 
years, and their ideas were the result of the process. 
Even our children to-day, with a highly developed organ- 
ism, do not in their infancy, of themselves, apprehend 
an Infinite : so much less did the barbaric man have any 
conceptions of such an Infinite. 

Animism, or a belief in another self or spirit in man, 
was probably the origin of the idea of God. Men 
thought they were conscious of another self in sleep and 
dreams, when, as the body remained, a part of the man 
was supposed to be absent. The shadow of a man in 
water, or an echo, was suggestive of another self or a 
double self. When a man suffered with catalepsy or in 
a swoon, it afforded the same kind of evidence. When 
the man died, the essential belief was not changed. His 
other self was only absent for a longer time. He had 
often been absent in a swoon or spasm, and at last came 
back, perhaps he would come back even now. So they 
placed food or drink or arms on his grave, that, when he 
returned, he would have something with which to sup- 
port or to defend himself. If he did not return, they 
still did not lose faith in the existence of his other self. 
This other self, this absent self, this mystery, became at 
last their object of worship. 

The worship of the spirits of dead ancestors was there- 
fore probably the first form of religion. Men called on 
these departed spirits for help, and offered to them sacri- 
fices. Gradually, of course, they came to consider the 
ancestor of a tribe who had been the longest dead as the 
chief god or spirit. All fetichism and animal worship 
and nature worship were connected with this idea of 



106 THE G08PJUL OF LAW. 

another self, and probably grew out of ancestor worship. 
The reason men worshipped a peculiar stone or a Mar 
or a tree was because they thought it contained the 
spirit of the dead, or a god. Speaking broadly and with- 
out minor distinctions, out of polytheism came henothe- 
ism, in which men worshipped one god while not denying 
the existence of others, then monotheism, the worship of 
one only. 

There is no reason to suppose that the ideas of the 
Hebrews were developed in any way essentially different. 
The writer of Isaiah recognizes a similar belief even in 
his day: "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto 
them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that 
peep and that mutter: should not a people seek unto 
their God?, for the living to the dead?" In the case of 
the ghost of Samuel, when Saul went to the witch, that 
woman said, " I saw gods ascending out of the earth." 
The old Testament shows us that the masses of the 
people worshipped the stars as well as Jahveh, that they 
worshipped the sun and animals. Even those who, 
like the traditional Moses, had a better conception, did 
not deny the existence of other gods. Jahveh was the 
"king of kings and the lord of lords," he was stronger 
than the gods of other nations, he " is a man of war." 
Even Max Muller, who is an intuitionalist, repudiates the 
theory of Renan, that the Semitic race was naturally 
monotheistic. Let us stop here long enough to consider 
the significance of such facts as these. It is assumed 
that, when the word "god" is mentioned, all we have to 
do is to affirm or deny a belief. But we discover that 
the word has simply stood for the conceptions of a par- 
ticular age or people in regard to a cause. God might 



GOD. 107 

mean a dead ancestor, a demon, a god of war, or a king. 
Even if we confess that the god of the best of the 
Hebrews was far in advance of the ordinary gods, and 
at last became comparatively moral, yet not many men 
in our modern churches would really respect such a 
being. God had not yet become the ideal of moral 
excellence, much less had he become the All-Father. 
He still delighted in the sacrifice of women and children, 
and the destruction of all outside of the race of Abraham. 

But the reply may come here that all this is aside 
from the question, and that the divinity of the Christian 
is the supreme object of excellence and of worship. 
But, even here, we cannot in a moment give a categorical 
answer. The matter is not settled by the acceptance of a 
word. I have not taken time to stop to deny these gods 
of antiquity outside of Jewish history, because few of us 
in our age would think such a denial necessary. 

The popular divinity of Christendom to-day, however, 
is a being of three personalities, or, in modern pseudo- 
philosophy, three somethings which are not strictly de- 
fined. But there is good evidence that even Jesus did 
not believe in such a dogma. The word "Trinity" was 
not used until a long time after his death ; and the doc- 
trine grew up as a metaphysical speculation, and only 
culminated at the Council of Nice. The starting-point 
of the doctrine was in the writings of Philo, who made 
the " Logos " of the old Platonists a distinct entity. Un- 
doubtedly, the writings of Philo influenced the writer 
of the Fourth Gospel; and he tried to show that Jesus 
was the "Logos," the emanation from the Deity. Men 
would naturally speak of the divine influence as a Spirit. 
Gradually, such words as Logos and Spirit would harden 



108 THE GOSPEL OP LAW. 

into dogmas, until at last we have a metaphysical Father, 
Word, and Spirit or Ghost. We could not accept any- 
such God, even if it had been accepted in Christian his- 
tory. But it is just worth while to notice that there 
is no such doctrine of the Trinity in the ancient hymnol- 
ogy or art or festivals or writings, up to the beginning 
of the fourth century. 

When men ask, too, if we believe in God, and then 
call even so good a man as Jesus " God," we are again 
forced to a denial. It is sufficient here to declare that 
Jesus never pretended to be God, that he was not 
thought to be God by the early Christian Church, and 
that it is an utter absurdity to call God the Infinite, who 
is the life and light of all this wondrous world, and yet 
to call a man God, who ate bread and drank wine, and 
at last died. If we are to believe in a Supreme Being, 
we must have one who cannot die on a cross. More- 
over, there is nothing unique about the Jesus worship. 
All great teachers, however simple and natural in them- 
selves, have at last been worshipped as gods by those 
who came after them, when myths and traditions had 
gathered around their name. 

But, aside from all trinities and man divinities, we will 
of course be asked if we do not accept the god of Chris- 
tian history, who at least was revealed by Jesus. We 
are forced to answer that, aside from all metaphysical 
speculations, the moral character of the god of history 
is such that we can neither believe in nor worship him. 
The popular god of the Church is not very much supe- 
rior to the gods of antiquity. Men have put into their 
god all the conceptions of power which once belonged 
to the idea of human government, and, refine it as 



GOD. 109 

they will, that is still the god we are asked to worship. 
The king was once supposed to have perfect liberty to 
follow his own will without regard to the happiness of 
his subjects. It was supposed that he could do no wrong, 
that might makes right. We are asked to worship a 
great King, but the history of kings is not so inspiring 
that we can be won by any such figure. The being 
which the Church calls " God " is simply a magnified 
king set upon the throne of the heavens. He can do 
what would be considered positively immoral, if done 
by one of us. We are told that we must not presume 
to judge a god, even when he is declared to be a being 
who, according to all known justice and righteousness, 
is immoral and cruel. But we cannot forget that this 
god is supposed to take delight in the damnation of 
thousands of the creatures he has called into being. 

So much of review has been necessary, in order to 
show that the word " God " does not stand for an exact 
idea or reality. We are forced then to begin for our- 
selves, and see what proof there is of a God. In reject- 
ing old conceptions of God, we may still have sympathy 
with the emotions which caused men to try to discover 
a cause. The different theories of a God have been the 
different attempts of men to formulate a cause for the 
mystery in their lives. Man has always been more or 
less conscious of some reality behind all he saw, which 
was to him a cause, conscious of his relation to some 
power outside of himself. From the belief in ghosts, 
through fetichism and polytheism and monotheism, up to 
the feeling of the man whose " worship is for the most 
part of the silent sort at the altar of the Unknown and 
the Unknowable," there has been always the same con- 



110 TIIK GOSPEL OF LAW. 

sciousness of mystery and of a relation to the universe. 
On the subjective side, therefore, we may recognize the 
unity of all religions. But a subjective consciousness 
by no means proves the reality of God. 

What, then, can we discover positively? Because 
we must reject old conceptions of God, must we accept 
theoretical atheism? Here, we must appeal to the only 
authority, — science, — meaning by science the best sys- 
tematized knowledge of the world. When we make 
this appeal, we discover that the same knowledge which 
destroys a belief in an anthropomorphic God and uni- 
verse furnishes a basis for a belief in a cosmic Deity. I 
mean by a cosmic Deity a power that is behind all man- 
ifestations and phenomena everywhere in the great 
universe, and that is just as much a reality to the man 
who believes in universal and regular law as the " non- 
natural man " god of the Church. To the man who be- 
lieves merely because he believes, it may be of no con- 
sequence to know that science is not atheistic ; but, to 
the man who cannot believe without some facts on 
which to build, it is worth something to know that t he- 
best modern science affirms an absolute power in this 
universe. There are a few men who believe in mechani- 
cal materialism; that is, that the sum total of things 
consists of matter and the motions of matter, but the 
very best science of the world affirms that all matter is 
but a manifestation of an absolute existence. The sci- 
entific man does not pretend he has proved the ultimate 
reality, when he has taken up a handful of matt< r. 
"Matter" and "force" are merely symbolic names for 
certain manifestations of a divine reality. There is an 
absolute existence behind all forms of existence, an in- 



GOD. Ill 

finite life behind all forms of life. I need not stop to 
quote from authorities ; but such men as Spencer and 
Huxley and Tyndall, who are often called atheistic by 
the thoughtless, have asserted repeatedly that philo- 
sophic materialism is absurd, and that to express all life 
in terms of spirit would be much nearer the truth than 
to express them in terms of matter. Men sometimes 
assume that, when they have taken up a handful of dust, 
they have found an ultimate reality ; but matter is but 
a name for one manifestation of that reality. Men do 
not know anything of life separate from matter, but 
mechanical matter does not itself contain the explana- 
tion of all life. There are always movements of the 
brain in connection with thought and emotion, but those 
movements are not changed into thought and emotion 
because they pass off into other physical motion. There 
is a great gulf fixed between matter and the psychical 
nature, and there is always something not analyzed 
after physical science has made its critical examination. 
That something is the ultimate fact and reality. 

Because we cannot know in essence the Absolute 
Power is no proof that we cannot know its existence. 
We can know its existence through its manifestations. 
We do know certain phenomena : we do know that they 
are manifestations of some Power. Therefore, that 
Power exists. Or, as Mr. Spencer puts it, "To say 
that we cannot know the Absolute is by implication to 
affirm that there is an Absolute." We cannot know 
perfectly the smallest shell on the seashore. It is 
related to all the universe in such a variety of ways 
as to be utterly beyond our comprehension. We do 
not know each other perfectly: we cannot know each 



112 TTTK GOSPEL OF LAW. 

other. We look into each other's eyes, we hear each 
other speak, but there is a great deep of life within that 
we do not know, and can never know ; but we can know 
that we are. There is much philosophy in Tennyson's 
poem : — 

" Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies ; — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

Nearly all the best thinkers of the world practically 
repudiate atheism. Even if a man affirms a belief in 
nothing but law, and yet rests on that law as working 
intelligently, he is practically resting on a supreme power, 
because the power is no less a reality, whether we call 
it Law or God. The fact is, however, that there is a 
power in the universe that works by law, which is its 
method. To take up the phrase which has been so 
much used, we can be sure that there is a "stream of 
tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their be- 
ing." We must reject a god of miracles because there 
is no basis for the miracles, but we can know that there 
is an Absolute Power which works always and every- 
where through regular laws. 

Leaving all traditional names and scientific terms, we 
can have a great reality on which to rest without fear. 
Worlds may dissolve, friends may depart, and yet we 
may believe that there is something behind, something 
left, that is too divine to change in essence. 

This much, therefore, we have for a sure starting-point. 
Then, we have a perfect right to go a step farther, and 



GOD. 113 

say there is a Power in the universe which tends toward 
righteousness, and makes all things fulfil the law of their 
being. Now, unless we are anxious about names, here 
is surely God enough. Even if we could go no farther, 
it would be better to believe in a reality, though we only 
called it a "Power working for righteousness," — to use 
the phrase of Arnold, — than to use conventional names 
that do not stand for any reality. It is some satisfac- 
tion to know that we can believe in such a Power always 
working toward the best, and yet be in exact sympathy 
with all the teachings of modern science. We could 
not build our hopes on a god of fiats and special mira- 
cles, because we would have to shut our eyes to the best 
proved facts. This universe is evidently moving onward 
by a fixed and regular law that is never suspended. A 
god who sometimes opposes that law could not be su- 
preme, because we could not but see that the law is the 
greatest power of the two. How much better then to 
believe in a Power which is working through laws 
which are regular and immutable. 

Moreover, we can affirrn that that Power is working 
in an intelligent manner, and is good. It is working in 
an intelligent manner because its manifestations and 
laws can be interpreted by our intelligence, and can be 
practically understood. That Power is good because 
it works in consistency with the universe. We know 
nothing about any goodness except by the standards of 
this universe. We have to find out goodness by study- 
ing the laws of the universe. Anything is good which 
is in consistency with those laws, and the Power which 
is in the laws and of which they are manifestations 
must be good. If in a world that is not yet at perfec- 



114 Tin: GOSPEL OF LAW. 

tion, we do not find what seems to us good, it is only 
because that Power has not yet made all tilings fulfil the 
law of their being, but is still in the creative process, 
or it is because we do not understand goodness. We 
see therefore that, after rejecting the claims of tradition, 
we have a power which is as real to us as the god of the 
church of antiquity. If many men do not use the name, 
it is often because they do not wish to seem to uphold 
the idolatry and anthropomorphism which have gathered 
around it. If however, in not using it, men assume that 
there is no ultimate power which works intelligently 
and toward righteousness, they are just as unscientific 
as the believers in tradition. Because a Power there is 
behind all manifestations which is a reality, and which 
in contradistinction from anything we see is divine. 
The name is not so essential, but the fact is essential. 
As says Goethe : — 

" Then call it what thou wilt,— Bliss ! Heart ! Love ! God ! 
I have no name for it. . . . 
Name is but sound and smoke 
Shrouding the glow of heaven." 

But of course I cannot be unconscious that many will 
not be satisfied with such a solution of this matter. Men 
may tell us that we are only believers in blind force and 
not in a personal deity. But, in the first place, much of 
this talk about blind force and law is only a cry used to 
frighten timid people. Force and law are not the abso- 
lute power of the universe, but only manifestations of 
it. If by personality men mean that the power which 
works for righteousness contains the potency of all 
which is sweetest and best in man, we must accept the 



GOD. 115 

word. Nothing exists in an effect which did not exist 
potentially in the cause. It is doubtful, however, if it 
is worth while to make so many concessions, as some in- 
telligent teachers do, to the demands for a personal God. 
To strip the word " personal " of all its ordinary mean- 
ing, and then apply it to the Infinite, seems too much 
like a compromise with prejudice. The Infinite cannot 
be less than personal, but is it to be limited by a word ? 
In all strict construction of language, God cannot be 
personal. John Fiske well says: "Personality and In- 
finity are . . . mutually incompatible. The pseud-idea 
'Infinite Person' is neither more nor less unthinkable 
than the pseud-idea ' Circular Triangle.' " Let us think 
of it for one moment. There is in this universe a 
Power which controls every comet and star, millions of 
miles away, in consistency with some regular law. That 
same Power is developing the rose in your garden and 
inspiring your thought. Can you think of anything per- 
sonal in such a Power ? Of course, we can understand the 
interpretations of men who follow the scientific method, 
when they use the word. But, when the masses of men 
will always attach limitations and fickleness to any power 
which bears the word personal, it is doubtful if such 
a use is not more injurious than beneficial. All words 
will be misinterpreted by many people of course, but 
there are words which suggest larger conceptions and, 
as I believe, more real reverence. We must think in an 
anthropomorphic way because we are men, but it does 
not follow that we must turn the Infinite into a person, 
any more than the blue sky. Subjectively, we are an- 
thropomorphic; but we need not make the object anthro- 
pomorphic, when we speak in philosophical language. 



116 the gospel of law. 

Again, we cannot know the Power which works for right- 
eousness in essence, but only know its moral , its method 
of working. The influence and outcome of that Power 
we may say, in our poor speech, arc intelligible and 
good; but we cannot dogmatically apply any terms to 
that Power in its essence without at once suir2restiii'_r 
limitation. We cannot strictly k/tow anything which 
we cannot classify. We can know men so far as to 
classify them. All knowledge has such elements as like- 
ness, difference, and relation ; but we cannot classify the 
Infinite, and cannot therefore know it as we know men. 
But this does not detract anything from the supreme 
Power. It is very poor faith which assumes that the 
Infinite cannot be, unless with some such poor intelli- 
gence and will as we possess. There may be an exist- 
ence infinitely superior to our conceptions. The Infinite 
is present everywhere, and is the ultimate reality in all 
things. It is but poor honor that we should limit it to 
our will and intelligence and personality. The Unknow- 
able of Herbert Spencer and of hundreds of others in 
modern times is not a region where there is no God, but 
a sphere where there is a Power which no man can 
know in essence. We can know that there is an Abso- 
lute, and we can know its manifestations, and we can 
know that things work in consistency with our intelli- 
gence; but of that Absolute in its essence we cannot 
know ; and, because we cannot know, we can ever won- 
der and aspire. I am glad to find too that, leaving out 
those who think everything is settled when they have 
found the chemical elements of matter, and leaving out 
believers in a " non-natural man " god, there is an essen- 
tial unity among men with deep convictions. There is a 



GOD. 117 

difference in the use of words; but often those who 
theoretically accept no god show the most loyal recog- 
nition of a supreme Power. 

But we need not be robbed of any emotional religion. 
Religion has two factors, the intellectual and the emo- 
tional. On the intellectual side, we can only appeal to 
what we can prove : on the emotional side, we may seek 
for sympathy and aspire after the Infinite, and put our 
longing into words. Only let it be understood we are 
using the language of poetry, and not of dogma, when 
we express our emotional nature. Men, under their emo- 
tional impulses, may call the Great Power " Father," 
although men used that name long before Jesus. As 
Max Mtiller says, too, the word Father is suggestive of 
limitations, as all fathers were themselves begotten. Our 
modern progressive Hindu calls the Infinite "Mother," 
to express his longing for sympathy. No pronouns nor 
nouns can contain the Infinite ; and the day may come 
when the believer in a Cosmic Deity may not be forced 
to say " he " nor " she " nor " it," all expressive of limi- 
tation, but may have a word peculiarly appropriate to 
an Infinite Power. In the mean time, we will do the 
best we can to express our belief in a power behind all 
manifestations, and to utter our heart-longings after 
perfection. Some of the best believers, therefore, are 
those who do not dogmatize about the essence of Deity. 
"Does he believe in God?" asks some man who has 
a Deity he can sum up like a mathematical problem. 
Better ask sometimes if he believes in anything else. 
Spinoza was called "God-intoxicated," and Fenelon 
wrote: " What do I see in nature ? God! God! every- 
where God alone." There are times in the lives of 



118 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

earnest men, as they see the changes in the material 
universe, that it seems as if there were nothing hut the 
Infinite. Then, they feel like saying with Goethe : — 

" Him who dare name 
And yet proclaim, 
Yes, I believe ? 
Who that can feel 
His heart can steel 
To say: I disbelieve ? 
The All-embracer, 
All-sustainer, 

Doth he not embrace, sustain 
Thee, me, himself ? 
Lifts not the heaven its dome above ? 
Doth not the firm-set earth beneath us lie ? 
And, beaming tenderly with looks of love, 
Climb not the everlasting stars on high ? 
Are we not gazing into each other's eyes ? 
Nature's impenetrable agencies, 
Are they not thronging on thy heart and brain. 
Viewless or visible to mortal ken, 
Around thee weaving their mysterious reign *.' 
Fill thence thy heart, how large soe'er it be." 

But is there no such thing as atheism; and, if then- is, 
what is its essence? Historically, atheism has generally 
meant a denial of the popular idolatries, and the atheist 
has been the man who was so much more intelligent 
than his fellows that he was denounced. In India, a 
man who grew away from the Devas was an adeva, or 
a denier; or, in other lands, a man who grew away from 
a belief in the ghost of a dead ancestor was an atheist. 
Socrates, Newton, Bruno, Yanini, even Archbishop Til- 
lotson and farther back Jesus, were declared atheists bj 
those who would admit no changes in the verbal inter- 



GOD. 119 

pretntion of religion. Whoever doubted the popular 
conceptions of Divinity, even though it was afterwards 
shown that he had a conception infinitely larger and 
grander, has been condemned and generally sacrificed 
as an atheist. If therefore, in our day, men who do not 
think very deeply condemn certain thinkers as atheists, 
it will be well to remember that in history atheism has 
meant simply an improved belief. Real atheism is the 
enemy of all hope, of all morality, of all progress. 
How, then, shall we define it? In seeking an answer, 
let us remember what we have for certain. This uni- 
verse is under the control of an eternal Power that is 
making all things tend toward the law of their being. 
Atheism is unbelief in that Power, opposition to it, a 
failure to rocognize the unity of things. The atheist 
is the man who thinks that wrong is just as likely to 
result in good as right, who thinks the universe is a lot- 
tery, who is a believer in " schemes " by which he thinks 
to get rid of immutable facts and laws. As Lowell 
says : — 

" He who has deepest searched the wide abvsm 
Of that life-giving soul which men call fate, 
Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate 
Than truth and love is the true atheism." 

The atheist is the man who thinks, because some old 
doctrine or theory is proved false, that therefore there 
is no eternal law of righteousness by which he is mor- 
ally bound to regulate his conduct. He thereby proves 
that he never did believe in a Power which makes for 
righteousness, but only believed in words of man. The 
real atheist may be the man w T ho stands at a church 
altar, robed in the vestments of historical religion, if he 



120 THE GOSrEL OF law. 

opposes the real Power in the universe which works by 
law and not by miracle, and which is discovered by a 
consideration of facts. The believer is the man who is 
satisfied that, whatever lie thinks or fails to think, there 
is a Power working for righteousness, and who surren- 
ders himself to that Power in loyal obedience. To be 
immoral w r ith the feeling that immorality is about the 
same as goodness, to fail to recognize in conduct the 
moral sweep of things, is atheism so deep and dark and 
damning as to be appalling. 

In brief, we intellectually perceive a Power in this uni- 
verse which makes for righteousness ; and we emotion- 
ally express our feelings in w T hat language we please, so 
it be understood as poetic and not that of literal dogma. 
We have a Power which is real, on which we can rest 
in life, and in the lonely hour of death, with a feeling 
that all is well. It is working always and everywhere, 
through nature and universal law. Speaking in the lan- 
guage of poetry therefore, and not of creeds, w r e can 
express our emotions by saying: He trails his garments 
among the sunlit clouds, the stars of the deep blue are 
the jewels in his coronet, the sweetness of his presence 
is among the roses and lilies, the murmuring of waters 
is the music of his voice, and on him can we rest in 
perfect confidence, in that hour when this outer world 
is melting away from us like the morning mists in the 
])resence of the sunlight. 



SATAN, OR THE DEVIL. 

Although to-day there may not be expressed many 
distinct dogmas about a devil, yet it would be simply 
impossible to consider the popular theological system, in 
anything like a complete manner, if we were to ignore 
the subject. Next to the doctrines about God and Jesus, 
the doctrine of a devil forms the most important part 
of that system, whether expressed or not. 

We may assert even more strongly that there would 
have been no necessity for any supernatural Jesus, had 
it not been for a belief in an enemy of man, like Satan. 
Up to the time of Anselm, the theory of the atonement 
of Jesus was absolutely founded on the doctrine of a 
devil. This world was made the dominion of an Evil 
One: all men were his especial property. But Jesus 
was offered up as a redeemer, a special price, — not to 
God, but to Satan, for which that evil person was to 
give up his claims on humanity. Every expression 
about the price paid for sinners, from that of the liter- 
alist, who talks of the redeeming blood, down to the 
more progressive, who calls Jesus his redeemer, grew 
originally out of the theory that Jesus was the price 
God gave the devil for humanity. If, in human thought, 
there had been no devil, there would never have been 
any idea of Jesus as a sacrificial Saviour, and no scheme 
of redemption. 

But men are mistaken if they suppose the Church has 



122 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

given up its devil. The Westminster Confession states 
that the wicked will be punished "with unspeakable 
torments, both of body and soul, with the devil and his 
angels forever." The doctrine is implied too in the the- 
ology of churches, even if not explicitly stated. With 
nearly all revivalists, the devil is still as real as any 
other personage. Even in the most respectable ortho- 
dox communions, although doubt on this doctrine might 
be tolerated, yet the doubter would be treated with 
suspicion, and considered by the multitude as on the 
high road to error. 

It is no proof either that the belief is gone because 
the name is not so much used as formerly. That is 
partly to be accounted for by the fact that the name is 
used vulgarly by the multitude, and it is therefore con- 
sidered a little impolite for the more cultivated to speak 
it. It is largely to be accounted for by the fact, how- 
ever, that many people do have a great deal of fear and 
resj)ect for the devil, and think it safer not to use his 
name too freely. His name is held about as reverently 
by many persons as the name of Deity. 

But some sects do most positively teach that the doc- 
trine of a devil is taught in the Bible, and also that it 
is an essential part of the scheme of salvation. They 
are most undoubtedly correct too, because the devil is 
the key-stone in the whole system of a theology which 
begins with an atonement and ends with a future place 
of torment for the wicked. There is no necessity for 
a sacrificial Jesus, unless there is a devil separate from 
God who must be bought, or unless God himself is a 
devil who must be appeased; and no one would long 
think of a hell without its presiding genius. 



SATAN, OR THE DEVIL. 123 

But even such an orthodox scholar as Rev. Austin 
Phelps, of Andover, says that there must be a revival 
of a belief in a personal devil. "Revive the ancient 
faith," he says, "in the intimacy of their converse" (of 
demons) " with the minds of men, to the extent possibly 
of demoniacal possession. Picture their power to charm 
men with fascinating revelations. Reproduce with Bib- 
lical intensity the great conflict of right and wrong in 
the universe, as a conflict between God and Satan." 
This is from a scholar in the nineteenth century, and 
this is his remedy against a belief in Spiritualism. 

But, on the most practical questions of life, this belief 
shows its power even in our enlightened age. Even 
men and women, who think themselves above supersti- 
tion, are still sometimes tacit believers in a great evil 
power in nature, which they can hardly help but making 
a person in their consciousness, because its workings are 
so fickle and lawless. Those who think that by carrying 
some herb in their pockets they can ward off disease, 
who visit fortune-tellers, or fear to begin a journey on 
a certain day of the week, or consider it a good omen 
to be married on a bright day, or an evil omen to look 
at a new moon over the wrong shoulder, or to step over 
a straw, or pass a horseshoe, show an indirect belief in 
demons, or in a devil who interferes with regular laws. 
Such conceptions surely do not grow out of a belief in 
a good God, because a good God would not be so foolish 
as to suspend laws on such feeble pretexts. They cannot 
grow out of a belief in law, because that would lead 
men to believe in natural cause and effect. They must 
therefore grow out of an inherited feeling that our lives 
are affected by some fickle evil spirit, who is any time in 



124 i ii j; GOSPEL OF law. 

danger of coming between cause and effect, and who is 
connected with certain persons, or material substances, in 
which he must temporarily reside. Every one of these 
conceptions can be historically traced back to a belief in 
a devil, and we arc: not done with a devil till we are 
done with the feelings which grow out of the belief. 

When Madame de Stael was asked if she believed in 
ghosts, she said, " No, but I am afraid of them." And 
so it may be true that very many people who think they 
do not believe in, are still afraid of, a devil, though they 
might not quite like to confess it. The subject, therefore, 
for these and other reasons, is of the greatest theological 
and practical interest. 

How, then, did this doctrine ever come to exist? How 
did a devil ever get into this world, glorious with the 
beauty of nature and sacred as the dwelling-place of 
man ? It seems marvellous that human life should ever 
have been saddened with the idea of a great evil demon, 
coming sometimes in the form of a slimy serpent, some- 
times as a roaring lion, and again as a cold-hearted, self- 
ish Mephistopheles, but always and everywhere the 
enemy of man, the destroyer of love and virtue, the 
rival of eternal good and beauty, and the keeper and 
evil genius of a dark underworld of torment. 

When one leaves his theologies and goes out into the 
natural world, when he looks up into the calm sky on 
a starlit night, or into the laughing eyes of children, or 
sees faces radiant with hope and joy, or observes the 
heroism of men and the devotion of women, when he 
is rapt to ecstasy under the influence of rich music or 
pure eloquence or unutterable love, when he is lifted up 
in awe before mountain peaks and by the seashore, or 



SATAN, OR THE DEVIL. 125 

feels the strange sweetness which penetrates his nature 
in the perfume of flowers, it seems impossible that there 
should be any dark spirit of evil brooding over all, like 
a black cloud, or even that men should have ever 
thought of such a person. But men have thought of 
it; and no character has had such an influence, or has 
been such a reality in Christian history, as this one 
which seems impossible to a man in his best mood 
to-day. 

Now, how did the devil come to exist? How did 
he grow, how did he reach his present form in human 
thought ? We cannot take time to notice the different 
theories on this subject which have been proved false. 
I cannot even give anything like a full account in one 
discourse of all the facts which show the truth on this 
question, but must be content with stating a few princi- 
ples, and giving only illustrations enough to prove them. 

Sufficient is it to say, on the negative side, that the 
common idea is that the devil is a fallen angel. The 
theology of the church is largely founded on the Para- 
dise Lost of John Milton. Many persons really think 
they receive their ideas from the Bible, when in reality 
they came from that theological poem. Milton was a 
great poet ; but he accepted the theology of his age, and 
this theological writing is one of the weakest of his 
poems. By taking a few scattered expressions in the 
Bible, and then by a vivid use of the imagination, with 
a combination of floating traditions and other mytholo- 
gies, he made Satan an ambitious angel who was jealous 
of God, and through his ambition fell. 

The error in the ordinary theory is that it is founded 
upon the supposition that the Bible is a single book: 



126 TUE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

whereas, it is a collection of different writings, written 
at intervals through thousands of years, and contains 
therefore a variety of ideas on this subject, expressing 
the conceptions of different ages and lands. For exam- 
ple, the writer of the story of the Garden of Eden knew 
nothing about the devil of modern Orthodoxy. He 
mentions a serpent, but there is no evidence that the 
serpent was the modern devil of the Church. The word 
devil, or Satan, is never mentioned in the legend. Mod- 
ern theologians, following the lead of Milton, who him- 
self compiled a variety of myths, have deliberately put 
later ideas into that legend. The Bible of course would 
be no infallible authority on the subject; but it is sug- 
gestive, as helping to show how our modern devil was 
made during thousands of years. He was not perfect 
at first, — not even perfect in evil, — was not considered 
a fallen angel in the beginning even by Bible-writers, 
but was manufactured by one of the most curious and 
interesting of psychological processes. 

In the first place, we must remember that demons and 
the devil are not exactly the same. We must first dis- 
cover the origin of demons before we directly consider 
the single devil. In our study of the subject of God, 
we discover that one of the oldest, if not the oldest 
forms of belief was that of animism, or a belief in 
ghosts or spirits as causes. Men received their idea of 
gods from their own nature. In the course of time, 
there would be a great multitude of these ghosts, or 
gods, in the land of shades. After a prominent man, 
such as the head of a tribe, had been dead a long time, 
he was honored and worshipped as a god. The primi- 
tive man thought that these gods entered into all kinds 



SATAN, OR THE DEVIL. 127 

of forms, into nature and animals, and even other living 
men. Now, he knew nothing about cause and effect as 
we think of it to-day. If there were no rain, it was 
because some deceased ancestor, some god, was angry 
and did not send the rain ; if a man hit his head acci- 
dentally against a rock, it was because the god in the 
rock was punishing him that he suffered pain. In the 
most primitive demonology, these gods or spirits were 
not divided into good and evil, but were indiscrimi- 
nately called demons. By a gradual process, however, 
the evil gods were at last called demons. 

Some of the gods were considered worse than others, 
for a variety of reasons. For instance, if a man was 
not buried properly, his spirit would not be satisfied. 
The spirit of an enemy or of the member of another 
tribe was just as real a god, too, as the spirit of a friend. 
Primitive men never thought of denying the reality of 
the gods of other tribes. Even the Hebrews never 
thought of denying that the gods of other nations were 
real existences. The only difference was that these 
rival gods were considered evil demons. Even so late 
as Grecian history and early Christianity, we see this 
belief manifested. Among the Pagans, the demon was 
only a spirit a little below Deity. Even Socrates had 
his demon, who was a good spirit. Now, the Christians 
did not deny these Pagan gods, but they considered them 
evil demons. Even Minerva, the personification of wis- 
dom, and Diana, the type of chastity, and Jupiter him- 
self, and all the splendid heroes of the old mythology, 
were acknowledged as realities, bat to the Christian 
they were demons. The whole world — the air, the 
water, the animal creation — was under the control of 



128 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

gods, then, in the earliest times; but the spirit of the 
ancestor of some other tribe, or the spirit of an enemy, 
was a demon god. In this way arose the idea of de- 
moniacal possession. If the spirit of the dead might 
come back into his body, as it had after a swoon, then 
it might come and take possession of some other man's 
body. An evil spirit might also come buck and take 
possession of an enemy. Insanity was therefore sup- 
posed to mean that some evil god, or demon, had en- 
tered into a man. Even if he had a pain in his liver, 
it meant that some demon had crept into that organ of 
the body to cause him pain. Even hunger and thirst, 
as well as disease, were personified as gods. There is 
undeniable proof that the Hebrews, at the advent of 
Jesus, held these general ideas, and were superstitious. 
In the Book of Tobit, we read that the angel Raphael 
directed the use of the heart and liver of a fish, as a 
means of fumigation, to drive out a demon. Demons 
were so numerous they could not be counted. It was 
thought that each man had ten thousand demons at his 
right hand and one thousand at his left; and the method 
of discovering them was to sift fine ashes over his bed 
at night, and in the morning he would detect their foot- 
prints. The most absurd ideas prevailed, which cannot 
be stated now from lack of time. From the New Tes- 
tament itself, we can easily see that Jews and Christians 
alike believed in possession by evil spirits as the cause 
of disease and mania and epilepsy, and even oracular 
utterance, and indeed all morbid conditions. Possibly, 
a word from Jesus might have relieved many sufferers, 
because, many of their supposed troubles being purely 
imaginary possession of demons, all that would be nee- 



SATAN, OIJ THE DEVIL. 129 

essary would be to Lave them imagine that the devils 
were cast out by a word, and they would be cured. 
Spitting was formerly considered a religious exercise, 
because by that action an evil spirit might be expelled. 

But the principal fact here is that the idea of demons 
started with the idea of gods, and that the god of one 
tribe became the demon of another, and the gods of a 
past mythology became the fallen gods or demons of the 
new theology. 

This can be also proved by looking at the derivation 
of words. The Sanskrit name for God — Deva — is the 
same word from which devil is derived. Indeed there 
are gypsies who use the word devil as the name of God. 
Both Conway and Fiske call attention to the philologi- 
cal fact that our word " Bogie," which is a name for the 
evil spirit which is supposed to be after children, is the 
Slavonic word for God. Fiske says, "The ' Bogie,' or 
1 Bugaboo,' or ' Bugbear,' of nursery lore, turns out to 
be identical not only with the fairy Puck whom Shak- 
spere has immortalized, but also with the ' Bog'' and the 
' Baga' of the cuneiform inscriptions, both of which 
are names for the Supreme Being." So we see that the 
world has been full of ex-gods, and that the evil spirits, 
or demons, of one religion, were once the objects of 
worship in some other faith. 

There is another suggestion of the same fact of devil- 
worship. Dr. Reville gives a prayer of the Madagas- 
car to the author of evil instead of to the author of 
good. That is, their devil had once been a god, and 
they had not yet given up a belief in him. Conway's 
friend found a woman in England who bowed as rever- 
ently at the name of the devil as at the name of Deity. 






loO tiii: OOSPJ I. OF LAW. 

She thought it was best to be on the safe side, and pos- 
sibly the devil might at last come out first best. We 
saw in the beginning that some people speak of the 
devil about as reverently as of their god. This is a 
survival of the old belief in devils as gods. Our devils 
were the gods of the past, and the conservatism of men 
still leads to a kind of reverence. There is a latent fear 
in many minds that perhaps the devil may conquer after 
all ; but, when we consider the kind of a god they wor- 
ship, it would not seem to make much difference if he 
did. The fact to which importance must be given is 
that the direct and indirect respect men still have for 
their devil is a suggestion that devils were derived 
originally from gods. We have found then the origin 
of demonolatry. The belief began in polytheism, and 
among the multitude of greater and lesser gods of the 
primitive world were the bad gods who were consid- 
ered demons. 

Our next step is to the discovery of a single devil out 
of the old demonolatry. Strange as it may sound to 
modern ears, the birth of the idea of the single devil 
was one of the most progressive steps in the develop- 
ment of theology. Let us not look with indifference 
upon the attempt of ancient men to solve the problem 
of evil in the Universe. They, like us, had starlight 
nights and sweet flowers and beautiful sunsets; but 
they, like all of us, were conscious of mighty evil forces. 
There were earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as gentle 
rains; there were disease and insanity and death, as well 
as health and joy and hope. Now, they did the best 
they could with their knowledge. No one should blame 
them for their attempt to make a philosophy of evil : 



SATAN, OB THE DEVIL. 131 

the only blame ought to rest upon those to-day who 
take their mistaken philosophy for truth, in an age 
when we know better. Their natural way to account for 
evil was to attribute it to the will of the gods. They 
knew nothing about natural cause and effect. In the 
beginning, they did not think either of one source of 
evil. Every evil was distinct; and every god or demon 
was a separate cause, fickle and uncertain. It was a 
step in advance therefore, when men first began to 
unify these evils and concentrate them into one great 
evil person. In the beginning, the gods were good and 
had alike ; but, gradually, they began to attribute all the 
good to the gods and the evil to one great devil. This 
was a step toward clearer distinctions between right 
and wrong. We cannot begin even to suggest the long 
history of the development of a single devil ; but there 
came at last in human thought one great devil, who was 
himself the cause of all evil. 

The Jewish and Christian idea of a single devil 
was undoubtedly borrowed from Persia. The leading 
thought of the Zarathustrian faith was a contest between 
good and evil. There were two deities, Ormuzd, the 
good deity, and Ahriman, the evil deity, who were con- 
tinually in conflict with each other. These ideas had 
their germs back in Hindu worship, but they were never 
made so distinct before. Now, anyone who will read 
the Bible, in the light of modern scholarship, will see 
how the Jews and Christians got their single devil. 
There is no single devil in any Hebrew writing before 
the captivity. Evil had not yet been taken out of the 
character of the Hebrew God, and attributed to a devil. 
God was his own devil, if I may so speak. All we have 



132 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

to do is to read from the Old Testament such phrases as 
these: "I create evil." "Shall there be evil in the city, 
and the Lord hath not done it?" "God tempted Abra- 
ham." "Behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit into 
the mouth of all these prophets." Jahveh, too, is rep- 
resented as sending disease himself ; and an "evil spirit 
from Jahveh" troubled Saul. That is to say, in the early 
Hebrew history, evil had not yet been concentrated into 
a single devil, but was in Jahveh himself. We can now 
understand Theodore Parker's expression, when he 
to a Calvinist, "Your God is my devil." Gradually, 
however, under the Persian influence, the idea that 
God ought to be all good, and some single person all 
evil, caused the creation of a great devil called Satan. 
Even Satan was not originally a bad spirit. The word 
Satan means an accuser or adversary. According to the 
idea of the Hebrews, at a certain period, certain spirits 
were appointed by Jahveh, around his throne, for a par- 
ticular purpose. The work of one of these spirits — 
Satan — was that of an accuser, a kind of attorney- 
general at the court of heaven. At the beginning of 
the Book of Job, we see that Satan was simply this 
accuser. He was not evil then, but simply stated that, 
from his experience, there were no really good men. 
God then gave him permission to try Job, and in his 
efforts to prove his theory he became a tempter. It is 
not possible to tell how the name of this single spirit 
or " Son of God " came to be applied to the great devil ; 
but one thing is certain, that there was no single devil in 
early Hebrew history. 

Our devil did not grow from the legend of the ser- 
pent. The serpent belongs to another period of devel- 



BATAN, OB THE DEVIL. 133 

opment. On mummy eases in Egypt has been seen the 
serpent of the Egyptian Hades, the Zarathustrians had 
their serpent, anil a legend similar to that of the He- 
brews has its place in ancient Aryan literature. But the 
"serpent*' which the Hebrew writer borrowed from 
other mythologies is not the great Satan of a later 
period. 

How the name Satan came at last to be given to the 
great devil is not clear. After the name began to be 
used, however, it was very suggestive, as we shall see 
the devil is merely a personification in the human mind 
of everything which seems adverse to man. Satan, "the 
adversary." would be therefore an appropriate name. 

But we have seen now the growth of the idea of a 
single author of all evil. It was a development from 
lower ideas, and was a step onward in the world's prog- 
ress. Before this belief was reached in Hebrew his- 
tory, the god of the tribe was like all ancient gods, 
without any moral character. He merely followed his 
own whims, and did good or evil from the necessities of 
his own nature. But, at last, the idea of God became 
somewhat purer ; and a devil was created, in theory, who 
was the cause of all evil. This devil, too, did evil for 
the sake of evil, and because it gave him delight. This 
was some improvement, because it tended to make some 
distinction between the good and evil in the universe, 
although men did not always have right ideas as to what 
good and evil are. TTe have found then the great evil 
fiend of Christendom, the devil of our popular the- 
ology. After the dawn of Christianity, we have this 
character held up distinct as the rival of Jesus, — the 
enemy of human souls. In brief, we have seen then that, 



134 



THE G08PEL OP LAW. 



philosophically, demons were created out of the human 
consciousness and imagination. Men were conscious of 
evil; and, because it seemed so real, in their ignorance 
they personified it. Historically, gods likely grew from 
the belief in and worship of the spirits of dead ances- 
tors; and those gods which for any reason were consid- 
ered evil became demons. The idea of a devil is the 
result of a higher attempt to concentrate all the evil of 
the universe, and separate it from the good. Men's no- 
tions were still too anthropomorphic to think of one 
principle of evil; and so one evil person was made, 
called a devil. 

Let no one suppose, however, that, even if a single 
Satan were an unmixed blessing, the world was done 
with its great multitudes of demons. The ideas of men 
are not transformed in an hour. The old demons came 
trooping back as thick and fast as ever, and peopled 
every grove, and filled with terror every home and 
heart. They were all the agents of one great evil chief 
now, but were as real as when they all followed their 
own will. Satan had his emissaries everywhere, from 
the days of Jesus down to the advent of modern scep- 
ticism. Indeed, human ingenuity seemed to increase 
the number after men had found a different cause. 
Without a break in the line of continuity, the air was 
filled with them, and men spent their lives in terror 
over their exploits. Not content with male demons, 
men soon manufactured the Succubi, who were female 
tempters. Even in the midst of medieval civilization, 
ecclesiasts and lawyers believed in the Incubi and Suc- 
cubi, the male and female spiritual seducers. Pope In- 
nocent VIII. issued a bull against diabolic intercourse. 



SATAX, OR THE DEVIL. 135 

Even Burton, the author of the Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, as late as 1600 A.D. declared that in no age had 
those demons appeared in such number. Lilith, who 
was said by the rabbins to be the first wife of Adam, 
was supposed to be the queen of the Succubi. Because, 
not content with laying the first sin upon a woman, the 
learned men even invented a story that Adam had a 
wife before Eve, who herself became an evil spirit, and 
then came back to tempt him from his state of innocence. 
Even Luther was a firm believer in the Incubi and Suc- 
cubi. Men even thought there were spiritual vampires 
who entered into men and sucked up their blood. We 
cannot follow up this particular point, but must leave it 
by noticing that up to the last of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the air was thought to be full of demons. Every 
man was supposed to have his special tempter, and all 
life was made a terror by this belief. 

But nothing could be more absurd than the assump- 
tion of Christian theologians that their devil is a real 
personage, of whom the Bible alone gives the correct 
history. It can be easily shown that every conception 
of him has come from old superstitions and other 
mythologies. The devil of the Church has not even 
the merit of being original, but is made out of all the 
myths of every age and land. Wherever the Church 
carried its devil, he at once assumed the shape and form 
of the superstitions of that country or age. Mr. Tylor 
shows that the Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit may be 
traced back to the Persian demon Aeshma Daeva, and 
then afterwards is made to do duty in the devilry of 
the middle ages and to end as the Diable Boiteux of 
Le Sage. The devil-inspired witch of New England 



136 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

clergymen and of Goethe's Faust was a survival of the 
story of Adam's first wife. The angel, who fell from 
Heaven in Milton's poem, had performed the same feat 
before, in the story of the giants who attempted to 
scale Olympos. The serpent came from India and Egypt 
through Persia. Our Christian church devil got his 
horns and hoofs from the goat-like deity, Pan, and 
]:>erhaps even obtained his irreverent nickname, u 01d 
Nick," from the water-nymphs or nixies of mythology. 
He has not even the virtue of being original, but is a 
veritable patchwork, made up of fragments from every 
defunct system, every hideous nightmare, every species 
of indigestion, and every childish fancy that has ever 
floated in on any breeze, from any shore. 

And yet he has been as important a factor in Chris- 
tian theology as even Jesus, and has always been the 
dark background of that sublime character. The first 
action of the man Jesus, according to one record, was 
to go off to be tempted of the devil. This story, by 
the way, has essentially done service in the literature 
of Buddhism. Then, the theory soon grew up that this 
world was the kingdom of Satan, which Jesus was to 
win from him. It was said that Jesus won it from him 
on the cross; but for some strange reason, never yet 
explained, he has never been able yet to take possession. 
It is true individual believers are said to be delivered 
from his power ; but, as they are liable any time to be 
drawn away to destruction, that too seems to be mean- 
ingless. Fictitious as is the devil, all the traditional 
theology is involved in his existence. A belief in the 
necessity of the death of Jesus, in order to purchase 
men from Satan, grew out of this doctrine. Conversion 



BATAN, OR THE DEVIL. 137 

was considered necessary, in the beginning, in order 
that men might be taken out from the influence of this 
evil one. 

Even the beauty of Jesus, as a man, has been ob- 
scured all through the ages by this devil doctrine. Out 
of the belief that there was something mechanical about 
Jesus, to offset the devil, has grown up superstitions in 
the Church. If Jesus could conquer the devil, then a 
cross, or holy water, or even pronouncing his name, 
would tend to frighten away the tempter. Beads and 
strings and torches, for the same essential reason, 
would have the same effect. Not to dwell longer on 
this special point, when we look at the history of the 
Church, even down to this century, we cannot help but 
see that the belief in a devil has been the greatest curse 
ever inflicted on man. It was this belief that has given 
priests and conjurers their power, because the deluded 
multitudes thought they had some magic way to ward 
off the power of the evil one. Science was kept back 
hundreds of years because of this dark belief. The 
man who began to doubt and think for himself was at 
once considered as given over to the devil; and every 
question of his mind was supposed to be the suggestion 
of that evil spirit. Goethe's Faust grew out of stories 
of the sixteenth century concerning a Doctor Faustus 
who was a magician and knew something about chem- 
istry. The name of this impostor was soon used by the 
Church as a title for the freethinker; and the original 
of Mephistopheles was the devil of the same period, who 
had taken possession of a man who dared to think. 
Original thought was considered a suggestion of the 
devil. 



138 THK GOSPEL OF LAW. 

No tongue can ever fully describe the long history of 
horror which has grown out of this barbaric conception. 
The lives of men and women were made miserable by 
the belief that they were under the control of a power, 
who might any time inflict on them the most terrible 
diseases, and then after death carry them away to ever- 
lasting misery. Who could ever be really happy with 
the thought that the very air was filled with evil spirits, 
and that even their friends and helpless babes were 
under the seductive influence of demons ? More suffer- 
ing and agony have been caused by the belief in witch- 
craft than by all the wars of ambition that have ever 
cursed the earth. Thousands of men and women, and 
even little children, have been sent to death in the 
most heartless manner, because of a belief that they 
were possessed of the devil ; bishops, priests, and even 
judges, condemned to death in the most cruel way, 
without trial, every one who was accused of the crime. 
A denial on the part of the accused was of no signifi- 
cance, because one who was charged with witchcraft 
was supposed to be under such Satanic influence that he 
would utter falsehood. Protestantism has just as dark 
a record as the old church of Romanism. Luther not 
only believed in the devil, but said he would have no 
compassion on the witches, but would burn them all. 
Scotch Presbyterians not only made life hideous by their 
terrible doctrines of the devil, but their persecution of 
supposed witches was the most atrocious. Baxter and 
Wesley were firm believers in witchcraft, and thought 
that any doubt on the subject was a doubt of Christian- 
ity. Never were there so many deaths for witchcraft 
as under the Puritans during and after the reign of 



SATAN, OR THE DEVIL. 139 

Cromwell. There was never any inquisition more cruel 
and unjust than that of Puritan clergymen of New 
England, when they dragged sweet children and lx au- 
t if ul maidens and white-haired, gentle mothers from 
their homes, to send them to a hopeless death, under 
the charge of witchcraft. The Puritans had many noble 
elements of character; but Puritanism, on its religious 
side, was largely devil worship, and its real spirit was 
more dark and intolerant and inhuman than that of 
any infidel French Revolution. Many Puritans were 
brave, strong, conscientious men ; but, because of their 
belief in this hideous doctrine, they made life a hell on 
earth. When every vestige of superstition, which has 
grown out of the old doctrine, is banished from the 
minds of men and the teachings of the Church, it will 
be one of the greatest triumphs in history. 

The conclusion of our investigation is so plain that it 
hardly needs expression. There is no authority what- 
ever for the church doctrine of a devil. The devil was 
created out of all the dreams and sorrows and false phi- 
losophies of all the ages. He was only the result of a 
feeble attempt to explain the mystery of evil. No man 
can explain fully this mystery. We only know that this 
is a universe of law, and that whatever comes in conflict 
with that law will bring a result of pain. There are 
certain natural causes for all apparent evil. Wind and 
storm and disease and death all come by natural and 
regular processes. The day for the personification of 
natural forces has about departed. The devil theory 
was a development from demonolatry. It divided the 
causes of the universe into two, instead of a multitude. 
But there should be no division at all; for there is but 



140 THE GOSPEL OK LAW. 

one ultimate power in this universe, and what seems to 
us evil is but the condition under which it works. 

With the destruction of the old devil ought to go 
logically all the theology which grew out of a belief in 
his existence. All schemes of redemption, all hells as 
places, all sacrifices, all holy rites and hymns and prayers 
which give expression to such beliefs, have no more any 
logical meaning. All our beliefs, however faint, in the 
magic power of relics and sacred days and omens, ought, 
too, to go with the decaying doctrine out of which they 
grew. 

Let us thank science and take courage in the thought 
that the old devils arc dying and will soon be dead. 
Everything is now, in the belief of the most thoughtful 
men, governed by the law of cause and effect. Disease 
and lunacy are traced to their cause, the storm and earth- 
quake are following some law, our suffering when we do 
wrong is the consciousness we have that we have trans- 
gressed some principle of righteousness. There are no 
special miracles, for all life is a mystery. 

There is no double conflicting power in this universe, 
but all things everywhere are governed by one universal 
righteous law. The fires of hell are put out, " no deity 
simmers in the boiling pot, no presiding spirits dwell in 
the volcano, no howling demon shrieks from the mouth 
of the lunatic." Thanks to scepticism and critical in- 
vestigation, we are no more choked with the asphyxia 
of an atmosphere pervaded with demons. Storm and 
earthquake are just as natural as rain-drop and sunshine, 
and just as divine. If they destroy us, they are still 
expressions of a universal good, and are a part of the 
process that is making the world habitable. Therefore, 



SATAN, OB TIIE DEVIL. 141 

the sweet thought that comes to us on starlit nights and 
with the perfume of flowers and the ecstasy of love and 
the laughter of children is the truest ; and the dogmas 
formed under morbid conditions are unreal and fictitious. 
It is only the result of weakness, in ourselves or ances- 
tors, which we turn into devils; and we can trace the 
cause of every one in our education or physical organism. 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT 

It hardly needs to be stated that the average believer 
considers the doctrine of sin an essential part of belief. 
The " atonement " is considered the one fundamental 
necessity, but it is necessary because man is a sinner, 
and needs an atonement made for him. So important 
is this dogma that any one who denies that man is a 
sinner, or the necessity of an atonement, is considered a 
dangerous sceptic. "Self-righteousness" is continually 
condemned by the Church ; and it is supposed to consist 
in the belief, or feeling, that a man is not a sinner, and 
has the power to be righteous enough himself. Here 
is the point where Liberals are continually judged. No 
matter how moral a man may be, or even how reverent, 
he is considered sceptical, if he does not believe that 
man is a sinner. To persuade men to feel that they are 
sinners is the prime business of the churches, and logi- 
cally too, because there would be no place for their 
atonement, or their "redeemer," unless man has such 
a nature or is in such a relation toward God that the 
atonement and saviour are necessary. 

The atonement, too, is considered fundamental. With 
many persons in modern churches, a man may doubt 
almost everything else ; but if he only says in some form 
that he believes in the atonement, though he may not 
be able to tell what he means by it, he is considered a 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 143 

true believer. Be a man never so moral, if he dies in 
disbelief of that atonement, his future state is consid- 
ered critical; and though a man has committed even the 
crime of murder, if he will only say on the gallows that 
he accepts the blood atonement, it is supposed that he 
will go at once into the arms of Jesus. With the ex- 
ception of a few modern religious societies, all the 
churches of Christendom are built on the doctrines of 
sin and the atonement. Take away those doctrines, 
and you take away all their present reason for exist- 
ence, you hush all their prayers for forgiveness, all their 
hymns to the slain Lamb of God, you destroy the force 
of all their logic, you bring to an end all their church 
business. Because, let this be remembered, that the 
business of the Church is "saving souls," as we may 
hear everywhere. By soul-saving, too, is not meant the 
deliverance of men from intellectual error, from polit- 
ical corruption, from social evil habits, but from the con- 
sequences of a theological something called " sin." If 
you were to answer some believer, who asked you if 
your soul was saved, that so far as you knew you 
lived a good life, he would tell you that was not what 
he meant. He would want to know if you had been 
saved from sin, and had accepted Jesus; and his "sin," 
too, would not necessarily mean anything real and tangi- 
ble, but a metaphysical something, that he thinks shuts 
you away from God, and will keep you out of heaven, 
unless it is forgiven. Because all this modern talk 
about the value of the Church as a school of education 
in morals is founded on modern rationalism, and not on 
theology. The traditional Church has no logical place 
for any such work. Any instructions in morals are 



144 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

purely side issues, engrafted into the Church as mod- 
ern improvements, but no part of the original system. 
Let some active young minister go on the supposition 
a little while that the Church is a school ot education 
in morals, and he will soon discover his mistake. Let 
him begin to give a course of Sunday evening lectures 
on the necessity of good drainage and digestible food 
and the legitimate drama and morals in politics, and 
he will soon be informed by the defenders of the faith 
that he is perverting the purpose of his ministry, and 
that his business is to "save souls" by preaching the 
comfortable old doctrine of sin and its atonement 
through the blood of Jesus. He must not talk either 
about any sins near enough to touch any vital fact in 
life, but must talk of " sin," the indefinable something 
which shuts men aw r ay from God and heaven. As the 
Biglow Papers has it: — 

"I'm willin' a man should go tollable strong 
Agin wrong in the abstract, for that kind of wrong 
Is oilers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied, 
Because it's a crime no one never committed; 
But he mus'n't be hard on partickler sins, 
Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins." 

There is some difficulty in stating in a few words what 
these doctrines are. The difficulty is not that there are 
no definitions, but that there are so many different ones 
that it is not easy to choose. The doctrines of the Ko- 
man Catholics and of the Church of England are not 
essentially different on this question from that of the 
evangelical churches. We need not here go into the fine 
definitions on minor points. There is this unity underly- 
ing all the definitions : that man is a sinner, that he is in 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 115 

a state of enmity against God, that he naturally prefers 
wrong to right, that his nature is such that he cannot do 
right of himself, that because of his nature he is under 
the condemnation of God, in some form. It is almost 
universally held too by all who think man a sinner that 
he became so because of the fall of Adam ; and all imply, 
if they do not affirm, that sin is an entity — a thing — 
which shuts man away from God, and will at last keep 
him out of heaven, unless removed by some power out- 
side of himself. 

This fact, too, must be kept prominent, if we would 
understand this subject: that sin, in the theological sense, 
does not necessarily mean bad conduct between men, or 
anything practical or tangible, but that it is something 
with reference to God, something which separates a man 
from him. It does not mean immorality, because the 
moral man, according to the Church, may be the greatest 
of sinners. 

With this idea, of course a doctrine of an atonement 
would follow as a logical necessity. If man is in such 
a condition that he cannot do right, and if, because of 
that, he is under the wrath of God, or even at enmity 
with God, something must be done for him. 

Historically, the first theory in the Church, after dog- 
mas were formulated, was that when man sinned he be- 
came the property of Satan, and that Jesus gave himself 
as a price to that arch-demon for the purchase of hu- 
manity. It is founded on such words in the New Testa- 
ment as redeem and ransom. Jesus was the " redeemer," 
or price paid for man. 

The second theory is the legal. The law of God is 
inexorable, and had to be kept by some one. The sin of 



146 THE GOSPEL OE LAW. 

mail being against an infinite person, however, the guilt 
is infinite; and, as man is only finite, lie eonld not pay 
his own infinite debt. It is just worth while here to call 
attention to the cold-blooded nature of this theory. It 
has not any reference to the purification of man's nature, 
but is purely a technical matter, an account to be settled 
in a forensic way. Such words as forensic and debt are 
those most often used even to-day in theological semina- 
ries where it is taught. The leyal theory dates essen- 
tially from Anselm, who lived in the eleventh century, 
and tried to show that man owed a debt to divine jus- 
tice ; and as he, being finite, could not pay a debt to one 
who was infinite, God himself, in the person of Jesus, 
died and paid the debt. This has been the popular the- 
ory ever since it was conceived. Calvin held it essen- 
tially, and taught that Jesus, during the three days he 
was dead, was in hell, and suffered during that time the 
exact amount that sinners would have suffered, if they 
had endured endless punishment. This is the literal 
doctrine of substitution, " an eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tootn," to satisfy God this time, and not Satan. 
Out of this grew the doctrine of the limited atonement, 
which is that Jesus died only for the elect, paid only 
their debts, and that no others could be called or saved. 
The holders of this theory find abundant illustrations in 
the literal language of the Bible. In a Presbyterian 
newspaper, within a month, it is stated that as the He- 
brew laid his sins on the head of a goat, who escaped 
and carried them away into the wilderness, so the mod- 
ern believer " contemplates Jesus as bearing his sins in 
his own body on the tree"; and "he feels that these sins 
are entities," literally carried away. 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 147 

Another theory is that of New England Congrega- 
tionalism, and is generally called the governmental. It 
was first essentially propounded by Grotius in 1645 
A.D. It is in substance that Jesus did not die as a sub- 
stitute, but only to uphold the dignity of the divine 
government. Man had sinned ; and, if God forgave him 
without somebody suffering, it would lower the govern- 
ment of the universe. There is a wrath principle in 
the universe that must be satisfied. If some one did 
not bear that wrath, there could be no government; 
therefore Jesus died to show that all rebellion must 
bring suffering. Although this is the theory taught in 
the seminaries of New England, and so much vaunted 
by Joseph Cook, it is perhaps the most superficial of any 
ever devised. If it were not so immoral, it might be 
called the humorous theory of the atonement. Men 
were guilty ; and so, in order to uphold the dignity of 
government, God let them go free, and punished a man 
who was innocent. A government of that kind would 
have a peculiar kind of dignity. What would we think 
of an American President, who, in order to show the 
dignity of the American government after the war, 
would have permitted all who had rebelled to go free, 
and then would have satisfied the wrath principle by 
hanging up the gentle Emerson or the poetical Long- 
fellow? Will men be damned for not believing in a 
god who would not make a decent President? 

These are not all the theories of the atonement, but 
only some of the most prominent. Horace Bushnell, 
for instance, upheld what has been called the "moral 
influence" theory, which was in substance that God 
suffered in Jesus, in order to win men back to him. 



148 TIIK GOSPEL OF LAW. 

His theory has been held in a great variety of shapes 
since his day, and has been a stepping-stone over which 
many men have started away from the harsh old sys- 
tem. It was essentially formulated by Abelard. But 
none of these moral influence theories have ever been 
popular with the Church. The nearer any man could 
come to literal blood and literal substitution, the more 
he has been in favor with the popular Church. Bush- 
nell was always considered a heretic by the truly ortho- 
dox; and even recently the great Methodist preacher 
of Chicago, Dr. Thomas, has been suspended, principally 
because he does not believe in the "slaughter house" 
theory of the atonement. No time need be spent in 
showing that the orthodox churches still have these old 
doctrines in their creeds. Many still believe in them, 
although it is difficult to get them to define their posi- 
tion. They declare that man is a sinner, and that the 
blood of Jesus saves, although it is not easy oftentimes 
to get a definition that has any meaning. The theories 
I have defined are held, however, in some form, by all 
who are not rationalists in the churches of Christendom. 

To show that I am not wasting time over fossilized 
opinions, it must be stated that even some so-called 
Liberals still hold the essence of these doctrines. Even 
many believers in universal salvation substantially hold 
the old theories of sin and an atonement. Many talk 
about salvation through the mediatorial work of Christ, 
and the necessity for forgiveness, as if some at-one-ment 
had to be made. 

What, then, is the truth on these doctrines in the light 
of well-established facts? It is that the whole theory 
of sin and atonement and forgiveness, in every form, 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 149 

is contrary to historical facts, unphilosophical, unscien- 
tific, and immoral in its tendencies. Of course, when I 
say this, I am not so unwise as to deny that this theory 
grew out of some fact in human life. But, although 
there is a root for these doctrines in human experience, 
yet they were formed originally under mistaken concep- 
tions of God and the universe. 

I. They are not in consistency with historical facts. 
We need not enter every time into the details of his- 
tory, but may accept its results. The result of the best 
historical investigation is that the church doctrines of 
sin and the atonement are founded on a legend. The 
story of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden is not 
history. The Hebrews obtained it in Persia as late as 
the captivity, and it existed in different forms in other 
mythologies. It is true that the apologist of Ortho- 
doxy has often used this as an argument for the truth- 
fulness of the story. He has said that the story must 
be true, because it is found in other writings. But this 
argument is a two-edged sword that cuts into the infal- 
libility of the system. As the legend is much older 
than the supposed Hebrew revelation, and as it is con- 
nected with other religions, it was not inspired by God, 
and cannot be true, unless those other religions are true. 
If they are true, then the doctrine of a special revela- 
tion to the Hebrews is false. Instead of the existence 
of these stories in other Eastern writings being proof of 
their historical accuracy, it only shows that the Hebrews 
did not obtain them by revelation, but that they were 
Oriental myths. 

But, if the story is a myth, then it is simply absurd to 
uphold the scheme of salvation which grew out of it. 



150 i in: GOSPEL of LAW. 

Even more strongly, historical facts show that these 
ideas grew out of a barbaric conception of the universe. 
The doctrine of sin and its atonement had the same ori- 
gin with the devil. We must not put our modern con- 
ceptions of culture into an old doctrine. Sin did not 
start with the feeling that man had done some moral 
wrong. Barbaric man suffered some pain or loss, he 
had been frightened by the storm, his cattle had been 
stricken with some disease, a limb had fallen from a tree 
and injured him, or any one of the thousand casualties 
of life had occurred to cause him suffering. He at once 
decided that the gods were angry. He must have dis- 
pleased them in some way; that is, he must have sinned. 
He did not think of cause and effect in the storm or 
disease, he did not even think of some real wrong he 
had done himself or to a neighbor; but, through his fears 
and sujjerstitions, he devised a fiction called " sin," which 
was between him and his god or gods. Just here arose 
the doctrine of an atonement. It began in the idea of 
giving presents. When a man wanted to win the good 
will of a living ancestor or chief, he brought him a gift. 
But, if a gift would please a living ruler, it might also 
please the ghost of a dead one, or of an ancestor, or 
the god. Perhaps the god was angry because his body 
had not been buried properly, or perhaps it was the god 
of another tribe who was sending the calamity. So men 
brought food at first to graves, and at last to temples 
or sacred buildings near graves. Not only was food 
brought, but even wine and costly gifts, all to placate 
the god or atone for the sin. Oxen and sheep and birds 
were brought as gifts of atonement. The theory that 
blood was sacred to the deities had a very simple growth. 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 151 

Oriental man believed that the blood was the life. He 
also thought that by drinking the blood of animals, or 
men, he imbibed their life, and became one with them in 
strength and purpose. Offerings of blood made to the 
gods, by the devotee, implied submission on one side and 
favor on the side of the gods. Now there is not any 
good reason for making the Hebrew or Christian custom 
an exception. When the Hebrew brought wine and 
meat and flour to Jahveh, when Abraham prepared 
cakes and veal for his divine guest, it was for essentially 
the same reason that the Zulu kills a bullock to offer to 
the " spirit of the king's immediate ancestors," or that the 
Fijians offer blood to their ghosts and gods. Under 
the influence of some of the prophets, Jahveh became 
a better god and more moral ; but any one who knows 
anything about the Old Testament knows that there are 
traces of every crude and coarse religion in the long, 
sad Hebrew history. 

Even when Jesus came, the conception of sin was not 
that it was immoral, but merely something which would 
displease Jahveh. It was moral surely to help a sick 
man on the Sabbath ; but it was a " sin," nevertheless, 
because it would offend Jahveh who, it was supposed, 
had laid down an arbitrary law on the subject. 

But how did these old conceptions get into Christian- 
ity ? Not, I believe, through Jesus himself. There is no 
evidence that he ever thought that he was to die for 
sinners in any modern sense. He wanted to help man 
in his own way, by his teachings. Toward the last of his 
life, he became possessed with the idea that he was Mes- 
siah. But, when he went to Jerusalem, he had no inten- 
tion of dying, if he could help it, although he was will- 



152 



THE OOSl'KL OF LAW. 



ing to die, if necessary. But both he and his friends 
thought that he would set up a Messianic kingdom, lie 
did not come again, however, after death; and so writers 
afterwards invented expressions, and put them in hie 
mouth, concerning a death as a sacrifice. They saw 
that his Messianic idea had not been fulfilled, an 
they must make new theories and assume that Jesos 
taught them. The essential ideas of men do not change 
in an hour, even at the birth of a Jesus. So they take 
up old barbaric conceptions of sacrifice to appease a god, 
and conceal them under the name of Jesus, and call it 
the Christian scheme of salvation for sin. God wants 
sacrifices as much as ever, only, instead of offering hun- 
dreds of lambs, now Jesus is called " the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sin of the world." The Chris- 
tian doctrines of sin and atonement are not even orig- 
inal. When the Church of England still uses the words 
"accept our offerings and oblations," when an Evangeli- 
cal minister asks God to bless so much of the bread and 
wine as shall be used at a communion ; when, at the cor- 
onation of Queen Victoria, the archbishop offered on an 
altar a purse and an ingot of gold, and bread and wine, 
with a prayer "to receive these oblations," — it is difficult 
to see where they differ from the essential ideas of the 
barbarians, who lay food and tobacco in the place where 
they suppose their god will eome. Even the idea that 
the victim of sacrifice is a god is not new. The an- 
cient worshippers came at. last to think that the victim 
which could appease a deity was a kind of deity itself. 
"Thus," Lubbock shows, "in ancient Egypt, Apis, the 
victim, was also regarded as the God, and Iphigenia was 
supposed by some to be the same as Artemis." So, in 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 153 

Christianity, the supposed victim, Jesus, and the cross 
on which he suffered, became, one of them God himself, 
and the other sacred and efficacious. 

But, here again, apologists have used arguments which 
are two-edged. They have said that men everywhere 
have had this conception of sin and some form of sacri- 
fice : therefore, it helps to prove their theory true. But, 
on the contrary, it proves that their scheme is not orig- 
inal, that in its essence it is coarse and barbaric, that it 
is the same with all the sacrificial systems of the world, 
and that it was not revealed, but grew out of devil-wor- 
ship. Unless, then, the savage was correct in supposing 
that there was a cruel god who could be appeased by 
presents and mutilations, the Christian cannot be correct 
in supposing that there is some kind of a sin which must 
be removed by a bloody sacrifice of a Jesus on a tree. ' 

II. But the theory is as unphilosophical as it is untrue 
to historical facts. Little time need be spent here, as 
the argument from history virtually settles the whole 
question to all but those who refuse to accept history. 
It is not possible that a finite creature could commit an 
infinite sin. It is not just that somebody should be pun- 
ished for the moral inability of men. If man is a sinner 
in the church sense, it is not his fault. If there is a per- 
sonal, conscious god, he knew Adam would sin and that 
his posterity would inherit his nature; and such a god 
would be to blame, and not men, if man is a sinner. No 
man ever asked to be born a sinner; and, if he is totally 
depraved or partially depraved or morally unable to do 
right, then the power which brought him here is to 
blame. The day will come when it Avill seem like an 
impossibility that any sane man ever held such a philoso- 



154 hie GOSPEL of law. 

phy. Any human government carried on under the prin- 
ciples by which the government of God is supposed to 
be managed, by those who accept the fictions of sin and 
its atonement, would be considered too cruel and unjust 
to command the respect of even barbarians. Men under 
the influence of tradition lay aside all principles of natu- 
ral justice and righteousness, when they come to the di- 
vine government, as if there could be more than one 
kind of justice in the universe. It is unphilosophical 
to think of sin as an entity, — a thing. It is the way 
of children and of men in a childish state to treat feel- 
ings or consequences as entities. When something goes 
wrong, we have a consciousness of the fact that impresses 
us. When a refined man or woman becomes conscious 
of having broken some law, there is a sense of pain 
which seems like a thing ; but it is not an entity or de- 
mon, but merely a consciousness that we, or others, have 
done something which will cause somebody pain. When 
we do wrong, we have a sense of sin, simply because 
there is a sense or anticipation of pain. It is perfectly 
natural that a savage should think that his feeling is an 
entity that had come between him and his God, for he 
knew nothing about consciousness or the cause of the 
generation of certain feelings. It is absurd, however, for 
us, with the light of experience, to take up his childish 
explanation. 

III. We must, from necessity, abbreviate here, and 
come at once to science. Modern science teaches us 
that historic man is descended from barbaric man, just 
a little above the brute. Man did not fall, but he lias 
been gradually rising in the scale of being. But he >till 
has in his nature many beastly propensities and tenden- 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 155 

cies. Man in the past has passed through wars and dis- 
ease, has been the victim of passion and appetite ; and 
we, his children, have inherited many of his evil tenden- 
cies. There is no such thing as abstract sin in the world; 
but, through weakness in some parts of his organism, 
man is not able yet to come into harmony with the laws 
of the universe. It is not that man is at enmity with 
God that there is a feeling of wrongness, but it is be- 
cause men are not in harmony with each other, are not 
adapted to all their environments, and do not yet un- 
derstand what is best for them. It is not sin, but the 
consciousness of mal-adjustment. 

Tradition says the death of a Jesus and the right kind 
of a belief in it will make everything all right with God. 
Science says it knows nothing about difficulty between 
man and God, but that ten thousand deaths of ten thou- 
sand Saviours will not affect immediately the real diffi- 
culties. These tendencies are carried in the living cells 
in nerve and brain, and only such natural causes as will 
change these tendencies will affect anything real. If 
any Saviour will lead men by good teachings to so de- 
velop their nature as to modify their organism, it will 
at last help posterity, but it is all purely a natural 
process. 

IV. My last point is that these doctrines are immoral 
in their tendencies. Now let us here keep distinct 
things which differ. Multitudes of men in this nine- 
teenth century who hold this theory of sin and its 
atonement are moral men. They even think that a 
belief in these doctrines is an aid to morality. But 
morality has no logical place in their system. The nine- 
teenth century, under the influence of the teachings of 



156 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

experience, demands a certain amount of morality ; but 
that morality is in spite of, and not because of, the 
theories of the Church in regard to sin. Sin did not 
mean immorality in the past : it meant something that 
displeased God. That something might be the most 
moral; but, if it displeased God, it was the one thing 
to be removed. The Westminster Catechism says, "Sin 
is any transgression of the law of God." But which 
law of God, and which god ? Men said it displeased 
God, and was a sin for a man to gather sticks on 
the Sabbath, or have mercy on an enemy, or for a 
woman to say to her husband that there might be some 
truths in other religions. So, in their desire to get rid 
of their "sin," they stoned the stick-gatherer, punished 
the charitable woman, and hewed Agag in pieces. To 
get rid of this fiction which displeased God, the Puritan 
immorally punished the man who wished to play with 
his child on Sundays, or who took a walk in any direc- 
tion except toward a church. The " law " the Church 
has talked about has meant arbitrary decrees of a god, 
and not inherent natural laws ; and the " sin " has meant 
a metaphysical fiction instead of immorality. If the 
"sin" which is to be removed meant the evil of having 
sewers which cause fever in children, meant over-eating 
and over-drinking, meant such thought and conduct as 
tend to make men unhappy, it would be worth while 
to remove it. But, on the contrary, the more men give 
heed to this " sin " and its atonement, the less they con- 
sider real evils. Men sing unctuously these words : — 

"Not the labors of my hands 
Can fulfil thy law's demands; 



SIX AM) THE ATONEMENT. 157 

Nothing in my hand I bring, 
Simply to thy cross I cling." 

Now, just so far as men act on such a sentiment as 
that, it tends to immorality. Many men who sing it do 
not act on it, and are therefore moral men. But, if they 
lived up to it, it would at once stop business. Men are 
fortunately better than their creeds. They ought to 
bring something in their hands, and not simply to 
"ding." They ought to bring one hundred cents on 
the dollar, they ought to bring good healthful bodies 
as far as possible, they ought to bring their minds to 
the consideration of the problems of society and life. 
"Clinging" to a cross, or anything else, would never 
destroy political corruption, nor cleanse filthy streets, 
nor educate children, nor aid digestion, nor even pay 
the debts on churches. The more men believe in cling- 
ing, the less will the real evils of life be removed; and, 
the more they trust in an atonement, the less effort will 
they put forth to conquer their own appetites and passion. 

There is nothing more enervating than all this talk 
about theological " sin " and forgiveness. There is no 
forgiveness except to right our wrongs so far as possible, 
and make restitution. We need not waste one breath 
over our sinful nature. We might just as well ask for- 
giveness because our parents had the consumption as to 
ask forgiveness for a theological something we have in- 
herited. Joseph Cook went into stentorian rhapsodies 
over Lady Macbeth's "red right hand." What could 
wash that hand clean? he cried; assuming that Jesus 
could do it. Well, nothing could wash it clean ; for all 
the atonements in the world would not remedy the real 
evils, which were that the king was murdered, and that 
Lady Macbeth's sense of innocence was gone. 



158 ill i: GOBPEL OF LAW. 

The sum and substance of this point is simply this, 
that the theory of sin and its atonement tends to im- 
morality, because the theological "sin" does not mean 
immorality, but a metaphysical entity ; and just so fnr 
as men believe that any atonement will fix up, or re- 
move, the natural consequences of their wrong-doing, 
so far does it tend to make them careless about their 
conduct. 

The sooner, too, that men are rid of this whole false 
conception of the universe, the sooner they will be 
happy ; and the sooner they are happy, the sooner they 
will be moral. This idea that there is something be- 
tween man and God is one of the greatest obstacles in 
the way of happiness. It stops the spontaneity of chil- 
dren, it casts a cloud over the life of grown men. The 
worst thing that can happen to children is to have them 
begin brooding over their sins. All morbid conceptions 
really tend to immorality. How can a man be happy, 
how can a child develop naturally, w T ho feels that some- 
thing stands between him and a god at the centre of all? 
This fiction of sin, next to the doctrines of devils and 
hell, has been the darkest cloud that has ever hung over 
human life. Tear it all away, and what have we left ? 
We have this left. I am a free being in a universe of 
law, limited only by my nature and that law. No god 
frowns on me, no devil tempts me, no sin shuts me away 
from hope. When I do wrong, I suffer or cause suffering 
in others. All the wrong consists in the consequences 
which can be scientifically proved. What is called sin- 
ful thought simply means such thought as would degrade 
one's manhood, or injure one's self or others if carried 
into action. There is no theological sin against the uni- 



SIN AND THE ATONEMENT. 159 

verse, because no man can do the universe any serious 
harm. A man can harm himself, however, and his neigh- 
bor; and this practical hirmfulness is the reality which 
we should seek to remedy. But, leaving out all anthro- 
pomorphic conceptions, men may ask : Is there nothing 
in a man who accepts science to correspond to the old 
sense of sin ? There is just this fact, which is as much 
deeper and more philosophic than the metaphysical "sin" 
of the Church as the Inscrutable Power behind all, in 
which the scientific man believes, is grander than the 
overgrown man-god of the Church. "We are parts of 
the great universe, and are most profoundly related to its 
mysterious Power. We have, by development, at last 
reached a condition in which we not only can see the 
benefit in every-day morality, but also feel our obligation 
to live up to the deepest laws of our being and of the 
universe. We are creatures of aspiration, and we can- 
not tell what we may be in the future. We dare not 
degrade ourselves, we must keep in sympathy with the 
highest law, we dare not destroy our ideals. Aside then 
from the effect of our conduct on our neighbors, we feel 
morally bound to submit to the highest law wherever we 
find it revealed. We are not isolated : we are children 
of the universe. When we have a consciousness of some- 
thing wrong, therefore, it is our consciousness that Ave 
are not living out all our nature, that we are not in har- 
mony with the universe, it is our hunger after the fullest 
and completest life. Aside from practical morality, our 
sense of wrongness is the longing for a perfect life, 
which is born in us, and which forces us to continually 
strive after an ideal manhood. 



HELL AND SALVATION. 

According to the Divine Comedy, when Dante and 
his companion stood before the entrance of hell, they 
read these words written over the summit of the gate: — 

"All hope abandon, ye who enter in." 

In Dante's Inferno, he represents hell as concave and 
divided into nine concentric circles. Those who were in 
the outer circles received the lightest punishment, and 
those in the circle nearest the centre were the greatest 
sufferers. Dante represents himself as being conducted 
by Virgil into this terrible abode. In the outer circle 
was no positive punishment ; but here were unbaptized 
children, here were Homer and Horace, Ovid and Lucan, 
and here belonged Virgil himself, who said of these : — 

" And if they merit had, 
'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism 
Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest ; 
And if they were before Christianity, 
In the right manner they adored not God. 



For such defects, and not for other guilt, 
Lost are we, and are only so far punished 
That without hope we live on in desire." 

In the innermost circle was Satan, with Judas and 
Brutus and Cassius in his mouth, all suffering the most 



HELL AND SALVATION. 101 

excruciating pain. Out of a wealth of wonderful de- 
scriptions, I can only take time to quote one as a speci- 
men, a description from that of the eighth circle: — 

" And I beheld therein a terrible throng 
Of serpents, and of such a monstrous kind 
That the remembrance s'ill congeals my blood. 
Among this cruel and most dismal throng 
People were running naked and affrighted. 
Without the hope of hole or heliotrope. 
They had their hands with serpents bound behind them ; 
These riveted upon their reins the tail 
And head, and were in front of them entwined. 
And lo ! at one who was upon our side 
There darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him 
There where the neck is knotted to the shoulders . . . 
He took fire and burned ; and ashes wholly 
Behoved it that in falling he became. 
And when he in the ground was thus destroyed, 
The ashes drew together, and of themselves 
Into himself they instantly returned. . . . 
He arises and around him looks, 
Wholly bewildered by the mighty anguish 
Which he has suffered, and in looking sighs. . . . 
Justice of God ! oh, how severe it is, 
That blows like these in vengeance poureth down! " * 

I open the subject to-day with this reference, because 
it at once gives us a basis in sentiment and theory for its 
discussion. Dante's poem is not only immortal as poe- 
try, but it contains the substance of human beliefs on 
this dark theme, as they have been held in the past. 
Dante not only uttered the belief of the Church in the 
dark ages, but in his immortal poem may be found every 
phase of the belief in hell before his day and since. 

•Canto XXIV., Longfellow's Translation. 



162 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

After the age of the apostles, there grew up a fi 
dogma that a large proportion of men would he eter- 
nally lost for their sins, and that, too, by the direct pun- 
ishment of God. This damnation, among other things, 
was to consist in acute pain of body in everlasting fire. 

This dark doctrine of hell hung like an incubus over 
the Church down to our own century. The principal 
work of poet and painter and saint and preacher was to 
picture in the most vivid colors the eternal torments of 
the damned. There were a few who tried to spiritualize 
these doctrines, but they never had much influence in 
their age. Not only were some men to suffer eternal 
torments, but the majority of the race were to be lost. 
The old preachers loved to talk about the "remnant" 
that was to be saved ; and it is only within a few years 
that orthodox preachers have begun to try to show that 
there would be more saved than lost. Dante's Limbo 
exactly symbolized the belief. The most virtuous hea- 
then and all unbaptized infants were to be lost. It is no 
slander to say that the opinion has been expressed that 
there are infants in hell not more than a span long. 
Augustine held the doctrine of the damnation of unbaj)- 
tized infants, and so did even Pelagius, who was com- 
paratively rational. Protestantism has not been any the 
less severe in its theory. The Lutherans held to the ab- 
solute necessity of baptism in order to be saved ; and, 
although Calvin taught that the children of elect be- 
lievers might be saved, he left all others in their natural 
state of condemnation. Jonathan Edwards, who is still 
called by the orthodox the great New England theolo- 
gian, taught in the most barbaric manner the same 
harsh doctrine. Within a year, I have read in a church 



HELL AND SALVATION. 163 

paper a reply to a question in which the editor states 
that he sees no proof for the modern belief that non- 
eleet infants can be saved. The cruelty of the doctrine 
has led men to try to modify it, but it is hardly worth 
while to make an exception of infants. It is just as cruel 
to damn a man for simply having a sinful nature, for 
which he is not responsible, or for doing actual wrong 
which that nature prompts him to do, as it would be to 
punish an infant. The Calvinistic editor is right, from 
his stand-point, in saying there is no logical theological 
basis for infant salvation. But the general doctrine of 
eternal punishment has always been considered essential 
by the Church. It was the favorite theme of Scotch 
Presbyterian, and English and American Puritan. The 
Westminster Confession declares that the souls of the 
wicked after death are to be immediately cast into hell, 
where they are to remain in torments reserved to the 
day of judgment. They are to be damned first and 
judged afterwards. The Evangelical Alliance, which 
embraces all the Protestant churches of Christendom, ex- 
cept the Universalist and the Unitarian, has for one of its 
fundamental doctrines the eternal punishment of the 
wicked. The most Evangelical Protestant doctrine has 
always been the most severe. The dogma of Purgatory 
is of course absurd in its literal form, but it yet grew 
philosophically out of a desire to mitigate the harsher 
theory. It leaves a little more hope for the man who 
dies with some sins unforgiven. The refined New Eng- 
land saint, Jonathan Edwards, wrote in words worthy of 
some cannibal : " The damned shall be tormented in the 
presence of the glorified saints. Hereby the saints will 
be made more sensible of their salvation. The view of 



164 TIIE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

the misery of the damned will double the ardor of the 
love and gratitude of the saints in heaven." Mr. Spur- 
geon, the great popular non-conformist preacher of Lon- 
don, who is so much eulogized, talks thus to sinners even 
in our age : "Thou wilt look up there on the throne of 
God, and it shall be written, 'Forever.' When the 
damned jingle the burning irons of their torment, they 
shall say, ' Forever.' When they howl, echo cries, l For- 
ever.'" I could quote similar passages from Americin 
preachers of our own age, if time would permit. We 
all know the beliefs of Mr. Moody and Mr. Talmage and 
hosts of others of the same type. Perhaps the most pro- 
gressive opinion expressed by any who still adhere to 
the old Church is that of Canon Farrar, in his book of 
sermons entitled Eternal Hope, which created such an 
excitement a few years ago. He denies everlasting or 
bodily punishment, but still thinks there may be some 
punishment after death. There have been very many 
among modern preachers who have shown some doubt 
of the old doctrine ; but they have nearly always been 
suspected of, if not tried for, heresy, and their general 
soundness in the faith has been impugned. 

It is only truth to say that multitudes to-day, who still 
accept the general scheme of salvation, have very much 
modified their ideas as to the nature of future punish- 
ment. Very many have undoubtedly given up the idea 
of literal bodily punishment. Their culture, their sym- 
pathy, will not permit them to believe really in the eter- 
nal punishment of their moral friends, merely because of 
a lack of a belief. Out of the love and agonies of the 
human heart a better faith is being born. Noble men 
and women cannot bear to think of everlasting misery. 



HELL AND SALVATION. 165 

But we must sadly confess that a majority of men in 
England and America still believe the substance of the 
old doctrine that, because of sin, God will personally in- 
flict punishment on man in some form after death. It is 
still, however disguised, a personal infliction of a per- 
sonal God. The most progressive will put their hopes 
about in this form, that God must be too good to be so 
very hard on man after death, that God will not damn 
a man for a little sin. It is all the same essential idea 
of Dante's poem, the personal infliction of a personal 
God, although some men take off the extreme severity 
of the vengeance by limiting the time and calling it di- 
vine discipline. 

Undoubtedly, multitudes who still accept the system 
do not heartily believe in the old doctrine. A theologi- 
cal student, within a year or two, condemned preachers 
for not using the word "hell" more frequently. Many, 
without doubt, do not use it, because they do not believe 
in the fact for which it once stood; and yet they have 
not the moral courage to come out and frankly state 
their unbelief. They know their whole business would 
be gone, if they did not presuppose a hell in their argu- 
ment; because there is no meaning whatever to the 
" scheme " of salvation, in the old sense, without a hell. 
Perhaps there never was such a fine piece of living irony 
as that there should be people who wear soft clothing 
and eat fine suppers and carry gilt-edged prayer-books 
and Bibles, and play croquet, and never deny themselves 
any luxury ; and yet occasionally, in a perfunctory way, 
let the world understand that they believe their neigh- 
bors will be eternally damned. Not one of us could 
sleep at night if we knew our child was burning his little 






166 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

finger; but there are tens of thousands of preachers 
in this country who have do logical reason for ever men- 
tioning the name of Jesus again, if there is no hell, and 
who yet are the most comfortable worshippers of fash- 
ionable society, and would really suffer more pain at a 
misfit in their gloves than at the death of an uncon- 
verted neighbor, who, according to their creeds, is to 
suffer forever. 

But, nevertheless, the masses believe in some kind of 
a hell. Many politicians profess to believe in it, becatu 
they think it is safe. Nearly all criminals believe in 
it; and many good people, who are thoughtful and pro- 
gressive in many directions, are really tortured by a feel- 
ing that there may be something terrible after death. 
There are earnest people who never lie down at night, 
nor look up into a dark storm where lightnings glare, 
nor stand at a new-made grave, nor hear the name of 
"God," without being made to suffer torture at the 
thought that, if they should die, they might awake in 
everlasting torture. How can they help it, when all 
their religious education is based on such texts as these : 
" Prepare to meet thy God." " This night thy soul may 
be required of thee." "Depart, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting punishment." How can they help it, when tracts 
are placed in their hands with such titles as these: "Is 
your soul insured against everlasting fire?" "If you 
were to die to-night, where would eternity find you?" 
" No salvation out of Jesus." " Who can endure ever- 
lasting burnings?" Timid people talk about the danger 
of negative criticism ; but, if a man could do nothing 
else in this nineteenth century than help to destroy all 
belief in a theology with such a doctrine, it would be 
glory enough for one life. 



HELL AND SALVATION. 167 

We need not take up the battle between the sects, 
quoting text against text. There is a theory of uni- 
versal salvation which is just as unscientific and, to me, 
has just as little proof as the old doctrine of hell. It 
is, of course, more just and moral. It is simply absurd, 
however, to declare dogmatically that the New Testa- 
ment teaches this doctrine, or that it does not teach it, 
because the New Testament is not a single book. It is 
a collection of the opinions of different writers during 
about one hundred and fifty years, who do not always 
agree. Their writings show changes in opinion, the far- 
ther away they lived from the days of Jesus. It is in- 
teresting for us to examine the New Testament in order 
to find out the growth of this doctrine; but, as the 
Fourth Gospel teaches doctrines almost directly opposed 
to the Apocalypse, it is simply absurd to quote as if all 
had been written by one infallible man. Besides, it has 
not been because text has been set against text that there 
has been a growth of unbelief in regard to this immoral 
doctrine. It has been the sceptics, the scientists, and 
philosophers, — such men as Voltaire and Descartes and 
Montaigne and Darwin and Spencer, — whose facts and 
rational spirit have undermined the old theological 
structure, and brought real hope to man; although, of 
course, the early Scriptural Universalists did much in 
this direction. 

Then, it is assumed by all who hold this doctrine in 
any form : first, that it is fundamentally connected with 
religion and morality ; and, secondly, that it was specially 
revealed as a truth. Our duty here is then to examine 
briefly these two assumptions. 

Let us first, then, examine the nature of the theory it- 



1G8 TIIE GOSl'EL OF LAW. 

self. It is not a moral and a religious doctrine, but is 
opposed both to morality and religion. It is utterly im- 
moral for any being to create a man and then punish 
him eternally, and no quibbling can ever make it any- 
thing else. A god who at least, according to the theory, 
permits a man to be born with a nature so sinful that he 
cannot obey or believe, and then damns him for follow- 
ing that nature, is as immoral as a Jenghiz Khan, who 
slaughtered his wives and thousands of his enemies. 
Atheism becomes a virtue in the presence of a god like 
that. Not one of us would harm a helpless child; but 
is a god so much less moral that he can delight in end- 
less suffering? The true believer is the man who be- 
lieves so much in justice and law that he denies that the 
universe is under the control of a demon. We might 
fear such a being, if we were compelled to believe in his 
existence; but we could not respect or love him. It 
would be a positive virtue to hate him with an eternal 
hatred. The poem "Despair," which is supposed by 
some to illustrate the danger of Agnosticism, is at least 
as severe on the Church god : — 

" Ah yet — I have had some glimmer, at times, in my gloomiest 

woe, 
Of a God behind all — after all — the great God for aught that I 

know ; 
But the God of Love and of Hell together — they cannot be 

thought, 
If there be such a God, may the Great God curse him and bring 

him to naught." 

As a matter of history, the doctrine of hell has killed 
out religious aspiration, and a consciousness of a great 
moral ideal, wherever strongly believed. You must go 



BELL AND BALVATIOX. 109 

to the poets of the past — often infidels — to find much 
that is really elevating and inspiring. The writings and 
sermons of the theologians have been generally cold, me- 
chanical, and devoid of aspiration. There are, of course, 
many religious people who theoretically hold this doc- 
trine, but their real aspiration does not go out to their 
Church god. Practically, they set up an ideal being 
which they call Jesus, and into whose character they 
put all their modern conception of nobleness, and wor- 
ship him, or else their real aspiration goes out to nature 
or to an indefinite mystery. Jesus is simply, to many 
noble people, the name of an ideal being, who comes 
between them and that god whom they may fear and 
desire to placate, but whom they never can spontane- 
ously love and adore. 

But this doctrine has always been immoral, because it 
has made men coarse and cruel. Xo one theory has ever 
tended so much to make men hard-hearted. As Mr. 
Lecky has well shown, it has been the basis of all relig- 
ious persecution. If men were to be damned forever 
unless they accept a certain belief, then, logically, other 
men were excusable for using any means to make them 
accept that belief. Consequently, any persecution has 
been thought excusable that would tend to increase the 
faith. Here is the basis for all baptisms by force, for all 
inquisitions, and for the hanging of supposed witches. 
Men sang Te Deurns at St. Bartholomews, and held 
thanksgivings over the hanging of witches, and were 
heartless alike at the trials of Jews and heretics. Pagan 
Rome was never so cruel as historical Christianity, be- 
cause Rome only punished slaves or supposed traitors, 
but the Christians punished all classes. The Scotch 



170 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

clergy, under this belief, were as hard-hearted and cruel 
as barbaric worshippers. But we need not go back even 
to Scotland and the eighteenth century to see the hard- 
ening effects of this doctrine. Professedly, Christian 
people here in New England rejoice in the doctrine of 
hell. They say they do not wish all men saved. They 
wish some men punished in the next world. Heaven 
would be robbed of half its glory, if the crowd could 
enter. Many have much satisfaction in the belief that 
their neighbors will be punished. Even Dante put his 
enemies into his Inferno. Hell is considered a splendid 
means for satisfying malice ; and, therefore, as the doc- 
trine tends to make men heartless, selfish, and unsympa- 
thetic, it tends to immorality. 

But the doctrine has always tended to make men im- 
moral, because it has been connected with the idea that 
goodness is somehow separate from natural good con- 
duct. Here, you will understand my meaning when I 
said that criminals nearly always believe in hell. Even 
Guiteau, the assassin of the late President, as was shown 
in the testimony, thought the majority of the race was 
to be damned. He thought, as all criminals think, that 
hell is to be the punishment of all who do not believe in 
an atonement. There has hardly a criminal suffered in 
this century that has not professed belief in this doctrine 
before death, and taken comfort at the last in the belief 
that his faith in an atonement would somehow save him 
from the wrath of his god. All this, too, very naturally 
grew out of the philosophy on which the theory of hell 
is based. Let one fundamental fact be remembered 
here, that the idea of hell as a punishment for immoral- 
ity, or a place of retribution, is no original part of the 
doctrine. 



HELL AND SALVATION. 171 

Of course there are many cultivated people who are 
anxious to be saved from everything which will degrade 
them in character, but they did not obtain such an anxi- 
ety from their scheme of salvation. In that "scheme," 
sin means an entity which causes a man to be under the 
wrath of a god, and for which he may be punished after 
death. Salvation means a process by which a man may 
get that sin put out of the way and escape punishment. 
But the very noblest men may be punished, we are told ; 
morality does not count for anything. " Morality is but 
filthy rags." Consequently, this salvation has no direct 
connection with every-day morality. In order to please 
God and be saved from punishment, men have acted im- 
morally ; for the God has given commandments without 
any regard to conformity to the nature of things. 

Besides, to teach men that the prime business of life 
is to avoid punishment by a substitution or a faith tends 
to take away their attention from actual wrong-doing 
and its consequences. It makes criminals, it makes 
church-members who are defaulters, and it makes chil- 
dren selfish, because they learn to feel that their princi- 
pal object is to avoid the wrath to come, and that by a 
mechanical process; and therefore they do not feel the 
absolute necessity of working out their own salvation 
from everything that is coarse and naturally wrong. 
Teach men that by simply believing in Jesus in a dying 
hour they can be saved, and it tends to make them care- 
less about their conduct here and now. Church-mem- 
bers often say that, if there is no hell, there is no motive 
for goodness ; that, if they could be persuaded there was 
none, they would have a good time, meaning by that 
they would satisfy their sensual and selfish desires to 



172 TBI GOSPEL of LAW. 

the utmost. You cannot get along without a devil an<l 
a hell, men tell us. Surely, this is a candid confession ; 
but it strikes rather a hard blow at the assumption that 
this doctrine tends to morality. Morality has reference 
to good conduct between men. A moral man is one 
who seeks so to live as to make others happy in this 
world. But here are men in the churches who care 
nothing about good conduct between men in itself, but 
only act in a certain way to escape hell. They really 
wish to be immoral, but are prevented in their outward 
actions by a fear of the future. The fact is that, if men 
gave up their belief in hell, it might temporarily make 
them careless about ten thousand arbitrary customs ; but 
as morality relates to natural good conduct, which is 
necessary for social happiness, and as it is found out by 
experience, a disbelief in that old doctrine would not 
destroy it. On the contrary, such a disbelief would tend 
to make men observe the natural effects of conduct, and 
in the end would make them more moral. 

The other assumption is that this doctrine has been 
specially revealed. This assumption is especially based 
on the supposed teachings of the Bible in the use of the 
word " hell." Let us, then, as briefly as possible, look into 
this word "hell" in the light of modern research. In the 
first place, no idea of any future life, in our modern 
sense, existed among the ancient Hebrews. There is no 
doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament. The 
Hebrew race, instead of having a special revelation on 
this question, was really behind other races, and had no 
doctrine of future rewards and punishments. The man 
"after God's own heart" was to be rewarded here and 
now by having large flocks and children and material 



HELL AND SALVATION. 173 

prosperity. Jahveh was a god who rewarded his fol- 
lowers in the present life. The Hebrew word translated 
hell is " Sheol." Our translators have translated Sheol 
sometimes " grave " and sometimes " hell " ; but neither 
translation is exactly correct. Sheol meant the dark 
underworld of departed spirits. Hades is the Greek 
word which expresses the same idea. Sheol, however, 
did not mean a place of punishment, but the abode after 
death of good and bad alike. It was at first an indefi- 
nite, mysterious region, in which many primitive nations 
have had a belief. The idea of an underworld grew 
from the custom of burial in the ground or in caves. It 
was supposed that all the dead went into a great hollow 
underworld. There, the primitive man left the dead, 
and had no very clear conception of their condition. By 
a gradual development, however, men began to divide 
off their underworld. The Zoroastrian dogma of the 
resurrection only reached the west about 400 B.C. 
After the captivity, when the Jews had come in contact 
with Persian thought, there grew up a belief in a dis- 
tinction between those who inhabited the underworld. 
In the time of the Maccabees, when the Jews were so 
discouraged, they began to have a hope of a resusci- 
tation from Sheol. For the first time in their history, 
the idea of moral retribution entered into their concep- 
tion of Sheol. Surely, they began to think, their ene- 
mies would not be heard of again, but the Jews would 
arise from Sheol. The Apocalyptic Book of Enoch is 
the first one that shows the new idea, borrowed from 
other religions. In the same Book of Enoch, too, is 
found the origin of the Gehenna of fire and the lake of 
fire and brimstone. Near Jerusalem was the Valley of 






174 THH GOSPEL OF LAW. 

Hinnom, in which, in ancient times, children were of- 
fered up in sacrifice to the god Moloch. Josiah forbade 
this sacrifice of fire, and devoted the valley to be the 
perpetual abode of corruption. Here were thrown dead 
bodies and the filth of the city to be continually con- 
sumed by a fire which would not be permitted to die 
out. The writer of the Book of Enoch used this as an 
illustration of the punishment which would fall upon the 
enemies of the Jew r s. That book, not admitted into the 
canon, is really the origin of our modern idea of hell- 
fire. By a gradual process grew 7 up the idea of Para- 
dise, which was really the old Eden projected into the 
future. Here, then, we have an interesting develop- 
ment: first, an indefinite underworld; then, Gehenna as 
a part of that underworld; and Paradise either as a part 
of it or beyond it. 

We now come to the question as to what Jesus 
thought and taught. It is illogical for men to decide in 
advance that he could not have believed in such a terri- 
ble doctrine. We have no logical right to put our mod- 
ern ideas into his mouth and make him out a liberal of 
the nineteenth century. There was a moral side to his 
teaching that is permanent; but there was also another 
side, in wdiich he reflected Jewish conceptions. But, 
nevertheless, I do not believe he ever taught this doc- 
trine, merely because it was entirely outside of his pur- 
pose. Nobody knows that he ever uttered the twenty- 
fifth chapter of Matthew; and, if he did, it was not 
probably with reference to a future life after death. 
The word which our old translations sometimes give as 
" eternal " and sometimes as " everlasting " does not nec- 
essarily mean forever, but only age-long. But, if Jesus 



HELL AND SALVATION. 175 

uttered those words, he was following a different idea 
from our modern believers. He expected to set up a 
kingdom on earth during that age. The day of judg- 
ment was to be before that generation had passed away ; 
that is, men were to be judged by his moral standards 
as to their fitness to enter his kingdom. All opposers of 
that kingdom would of course suffer then and there. 
The Gehenna of fire was only a symbol, not even of fut- 
ure life, but of what his enemies would endure during 
that generation. But Jesus died, and did not set up 
the kingdom. As he did not come back, the primitive 
Church took up texts of the early writers and tradi- 
tional sayings of Jesus, and arbitrarily made them refer 
to a future life. There is not one reason to doubt but a 
large part of the New Testament was written under the 
belief that Jesus was coming back in that age, and that 
his enemies would suffer ; and future hell-fire has been 
arbitrarily put into the mouth of Jesus, when he was 
talking about the earth. The writer of the Fourth Gos- 
pel, written long after the Apocalypse, attempts to spir- 
itualize the bald and literal conceptions of earlier writers. 

Now let us sum up this too hasty description of this 
ancient conception. The doctrine of hell was not spe- 
cially revealed, but came from Persia. All religions 
have had their dark underworld ; but, in the beginning, 
none have had a future place of punishment. There is 
not one original idea about the whole scheme of the fut- 
ure life. Even the doctrine of Christ's descent into 
Hades grew out of a legend recorded in the Apocryphal 
Gospel of Nicodemus; and other theologies have simi- 
lar accounts. 

Hell is merely the localization of any human concep- 



17G THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

tion of misery and suffering. Instead of being a place 
foretold by revelation of God, it is a creation of the im- 
agination, manufactured out of man's dread of death, 
his desire to have his enemies punished, and his 
sciousness that some evil will follow all wrong-doing. 
Sin is the concrete form of man's sense of ma!-adjust- 
ment, Satan is the personification of all advers 
in the universe, hell is the localization of all the sorrows 
and sadness and penalties of humanity. 

In one word, here, unless all the false philosophies and 
theories of all the crude religions of the world are true, 
there is no authority whatever for our modern idea of 
hell. Instead of being a revelation, it is a doctrine 
formed out of the ignorance and superstition of ancient 
times. 

All too long have I kept you, and yet not long enough 
to do justice to the theme. Let me conclude with what 
I believe to be positive truth. You may wonder why I 
should treat the doctrine of hell and salvation in one dis- 
course. It has been simply because they could not be log- 
ically separated. Salvation has always meant, in some 
form, deliverance from the wrath of a god and escape 
from punishment. I would do full justice to those men 
who protested against the harsh old doctrine and pleaded 
for universal salvation. But, although on the side of 
feeling they were correct, they were logically wrong. 
They decided that all men would at death be swept into 
heaven, as God was too good to make men suffer. Some 
believers in universal salvation say that there may be 
suffering after death ; but, because of the atonement of 
Jesus, all will at last be saved. Both of these theories, 
although sentimentally superior, are merely fictitious. 



HELL AND SALVATION. 177 

They presuppose that suffering is the direct infliction of 
a personal god. But we know now that all suffering 
merely implies mal-adjustment, and does not mean per- 
sonal infliction, sent for either discipline or punishment. 
There is no ground for any salvation, therefore, builded 
on any such theory. There is no anthropomorphic god 
who sends suffering directly on men. What we do know 
is that this is a universe of natural law. Whenever we 
break a law of our being, we suffer. Whenever we set 
in motion certain evil causes, we cause suffering in 
others. The only hell, therefore, is natural penalty and 
consequences. If there is another life, by analogy we 
may reason that all evil will have its natural penalty in 
loss or suffering. The only salvation that is real is that 
we shall be saved from our passions and evil tendencies, 
and that we shall be brought into right relations with 
each other and with the universe. The hells which 
trouble us are not some places where a god might tor- 
ment us, but those sufferings, those pangs of remorse, 
which follow us in consequence of evil conduct. There 
are hells real and terrible, that are deep and damning, 
and whose fires no atonement ever puts out. Disease, 
disappointment, drunkenness, unhappy marriage, dis- 
honor, the degradation of our moral nature, — these 
are hells that are too real to be abolished by any promise 
of salvation from the wrath of a god. For what we 
need to know is how to be saved from ourselves, and not 
from a god or devil. How can we be rid of the evil 
consequences of wrong-doing, here and now, in the only 
world of which we have any positive knowledge ? 
Moreover, how can men save the victims of their pas- 
sion or selfishness, upon whom they have brought natu- 



178 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

ral and terrible suffering? The natural consequences of 
wrong-doing have no atonement in this or any other 
world. The salvation of the Church is therefore just as 
fictitious as the old hell of the Church. The real salva- 
tion is that we shall be delivered from the natural penal- 
ties which result from all transgressions of natural law. 
We must save ourselves as far as possible from the ten- 
dencies of the imperfect organism we have inherited, we 
must save ourselves from the effects of imperfect sewers 
and filthy streets and unhealthful houses, and from all 
ideas and associations thnt tend to degrade us and make 
us unhappy. We will save men at large by giving them 
better surroundings and loftier ideas. We must save 
children from the dens of filth and vice, save men from 
drunkenness and sensuality. We must help to save soci- 
ety by locking up or punishing those men who stand in 
the way of universal happiness, and by setting in opera- 
tion such influences as shall tend to positively make men 
live out their best lives. We must save others whom we 
have wronged by trying in a natural way as far as possi- 
ble to make reparation. The only real salvation is to 
have ourselves and others brought into sympathy with 
those laws through which the universe is governed. 
There is therefore no single saviour of men, and there 
are tens of thousands of names given under heaven by 
which men may be saved. Every man and woman and 
child who saves men from disease or unhappiness or 
hopelessness, or mental or moral ruin, is a saviour in the 
only real salvation. Every physician who teaches men 
to observe the laws of health, every poet who fills them 
w r ith hope and aspiration, every critic who delivers them 
from a belief in old superstitions and terrors, every 



HELL AND SALVATION. 179 

woman who wins others to a noble life by her own inef- 
fable majesty and grace, every child who persuades a 
father to be heroic, — all these arc saviours in the natural 
salvation. If a Jesus or a Buddha is a principal saviour, 
it is simply because he has persuaded men that it is bet- 
ter to live up to the highest moral laws. 

Much may be done, however, even now to save men 
who have committed natural wrong, not by a fear of 
hell, but by beautiful influences. Even men who have 
injured themselves may be helped. No man is yet lost 
who preserves his ideals and fine perceptions of moral 
beauty. The old scars may not absolutely be removed, 
but there may be much life and beauty in spite of them. 

But I conclude in the words of Edith Simcox, one of 
the most philosophical writers of our age: "Heaven 
and hell are names or visions ; the earth is ours, — here 
a hell of sensuality and hardened cruelty, there a heaven 
of love and beauty and wisdom, with a tender smile 
upon her gracious lips, and yearning prophecy in the 
melting depths of her unfathomable eyes." 



PRAYER. 

The Westminster Catechism states concisely the doc- 
trine of prayer in these words : " Prayer is an offering up 
of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, 
in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and 
thankful acknowledgment of his mercies." Of course 
there are different methods of expressing the doctrine, 
but there is practical unanimity among all believers in 
the traditional doctrine to this extent : that they hold 
that, because of prayer, God bestows certain favors 
which could be obtained in no other way; and that 
prayer moves God to do something special in their 
behalf, independent of or contrary to regular laws and 
processes. Even educated men declare that "prayer is 
the power which moves the hand which moves the 
world." Prayer, therefore, according to the common 
theory, is a means for persuading the Deity to some 
action. With this general idea, prayer is considered 
all important. No matter how moral a man may be, 
unless, according to the church standard, he is a pray- 
ing man, he has no hope of salvation. If he is a praying 
man, on the other hand, it generally hides a multitude 
of sins in the eyes of traditional believers. If a man 
prays properly, according to this dogma, he may be con- 
verted ; that is, he may have his whole nature changed, 
and his appetites and passions will be taken away even 



PRAYER. 181 

in a moment. There are some things, in brief, of the 
most momentous importance, which can never be ob- 
tained except by prayer, and by prayer they may be 
obtained by a direct act of the Deity. 

In order to discover what is false and what is true 
concerning this doctrine, we must look at its origin, and 
learn how certain ideas happen to be connected with it. 
Prayer grew up with the custom of offering sacrifices 
to the spirits or gods, and for the same reason. Men 
brought gifts or sacrifices; then, as they thought their 
gods wrathful or helpful, they cried out for mercy or aid. 
There is no evidence to show that prayer was an aspira- 
tion after moral perfection, in the beginning. That has 
been an after-development. In the beginning, prayer 
was because of selfishness or fear. When men brought 
a sacrifice, they coaxed their god to accept it, and either 
to have mercy or to give them something in return. 
Remember just at this point that the early worshippers 
did not have our modern conception of a great universal 
Divinity working by regular laws. Wind and water and 
tree and rock and grove were moved by separate gods, 
with fickle wills. Men prayed to these divinities to ac- 
cept the sacrifice and give something back. The Mon- 
gol fire-worshippers came to Mother Ut with brandy and 
fat, and asked for prosperity for the king's son and the 
bride. It is told of a certain tribe of Indians, who wor- 
shipped a rock demon, that they brought tobacco and 
placed in a cleft of the rock, and asked in return that 
they might be kept from shipwreck; and, in a certain 
portion of Africa, the rock demon is hired with rice and 
rum. Prayer, in the beginning, was always a request 
for temporal blessings, or else for a deliverance from 



182 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

danger. Men knew nothing about a law of cause and 
effect, but supposed that good crops and success in busi- 
ness and war came because of the direct favor of the 
gods. In the Samoan Islands, the prayer is that the sail- 
ing gods of foreign vessels would depart to some other 
coast. Even the Athenians prayed that Zeus would rain 
on their plough lands and plains. Many instances could 
be given to show that the original idea of prayer was 
founded on the belief that the gods ruled all nature by 
fiats, and that prayer was for outward blessings. All 
readers of the Old Testament know that the Hebrews 
had essentially the same conception, and prayed for long 
life and cattle and sheep and wealth and children, and 
even prayed in the most cruel spirit that Jahveh would 
give them victory over their enemies. A few men in the 
past have caught some deep meaning in prayer, but these 
men were the results of long ages of development. The 
Hindu, the Mohammedan, and, indeed, the worshippers 
of all religions, have prayed in the most selfish and cruel 
spirit. It is only necessary to read the one hundred and 
ninth Psalm in order to discover that the spirit of the 
Hebrew was once not essentially different. There are of 
course beautiful expressions of aspiration in some of the 
Psalms, as there are in the Koran and the Rig-Veda, 
but among the masses was this selfish idea underlying 
prayer. 

If it were not some selfish temporal advantage that 
was to be gained by a prayer, it was deliverance from 
the wrath of the gods; for this was the original meaning 
of prayer for deliverance from sin. A sin was some 
wrong or supposed wrong done the gods, and prayers 
with sacrifices were offered up for atonement. The Inca 






TRAYER. 183 

bathes himself in the river, and prays that the water 
may receive the sins he has committed and carry them 
down to the sea. The savage cuts off some portion of 
Ins body, and prays that it may be accepted as the price 
of sins to appease the wrath of the gods. Even circum- 
cision was not confined to the Hebrews, but was a cus- 
tom of other coarse tribes. The whole doctrine of ask- 
ing for forgiveness of sins grew out of the old ideas that 
the god or gods were angry, and must be appeased or 
coaxed. 

But, just here, we can find the origin of another idea 
in regard to prayer. If prayer is useful in appeasing 
the gods or getting some favor, then the greater number 
of prayers the better. So, at length, men began to count 
their prayers. The rosary of modern times is simply a 
counting-machine of Asiatic origin. The Buddhists had 
their rosary of one hundred and eight balls long before 
the Romanist. The Japanese have what is called the 
Flowing Invocation, by which water running through 
a cloth does duty as prayer and penance, and shortens 
the penalties of sufferers in one of the Buddhist hells. 
The Thibetan Buddhists have a regular praying-wheel, 
which is filled with prayers and is placed in all kinds of 
places. They even place it in streams and make the 
water pray for them, or have it turned by the winds. 
So they have flags with six sacred syllables, which they 
unfurl to the winds. Like many people of more intelli- 
gence, they fail to see that their god might as well work 
naturally through the winds and waters in the beginning. 

A careful examination will show that, except in a 
change of names, every single feature of the theories of 
antiquity is still preserved. Most certainly there are 



184 TIIK GOSPEL OF LAW. 

some thoughtful men and women who have grown away 
from all these rude conceptions. But prayer, as held by 
the popular church, is simply an old custom baptised 
with some new names. To find what is false in it, we 
must find where it exactly agrees with these old ideas of 
prayer which were founded on false ideas of the gov- 
ernment of the universe. In order to find the truth 
concerning it, let us make a few comparisons. 

First, then, primitive prayer presupposed a god who 
was like a man, to be persuaded and coaxed. But is not 
the popular conception of prayer founded on the same 
belief? God is supposed to be a being that can be 
moved to do something right, which he would not have 
done, if men failed to ask him. In other words, he is 
supposed to be subject to the influence of coaxing or en- 
treaty or argument. Does the man who cries aloud to 
God, as if noise would move him to do something, who 
adds words to words, as if the words had in themselves 
some efficacy, who ends the service with the common ex- 
pression that the prayer is now before God for accept- 
ance, who thinks there is some magic power in saying in 
conclusion " for Jesus' sake," as if that phrase were a 
signet which would be honored at the divine throne, — 
does the man who accepts the ideas and customs in 
regard to prayer, which are popular still, have an essen- 
tially different conception from the one who, in bar- 
baric times, thought his words would have effect upon 
his god because of some gift of rice or flesh, or because 
by long entreaties the god would be wearied? It is 
simply the same overgrown man-god, the creature of 
jealousy, of suspicion, and the subject of bribes and 
coaxing and persuasion. It is the most common thing to 



PRAYER. 185 

hear prayer described almost literally in accordance with 
the ideas of Oriental courts. It is declared that there is 
no assurance that the great God would hear requests, 
unless Jesus some way acts as an intercessor. The im- 
morality that is attributed to the god is exactly the same 
in ancient and in modern prayer. The old god would 
not do certain things, unless he was coaxed and flat- 
tered; and now we are told that hundreds of men may 
be eternally ruined if the god is not coaxed to put forth 
his arm in their behalf. 

The essential unity of ancient and modern prayer is 
also shown in the conception in regard to the laws of 
the universe. All prayer for material prosperity or 
safety is founded on essentially the same conception. It 
simply shows the holiowness of modern theology that 
the believers in it continually contradict themselves. 
Hundreds of men still pray for rain or for the removal 
of a storm at sea, thus ignoring natural law, although 
not praying for the return of the sun the next day or of 
spring the next year. Men show their belief in a nar- 
row, personal god, who would suspend an eternal law in 
regard to good health, because he has been coaxed. It 
makes no difference if the request is for something per- 
fectly legitimate : just so far as it is founded upon the 
idea that there is any suspension of regular processes 
and that a god will, because he is coaxed, send to men 
some distinct and special favor, it is the same old belief 
in a little jealous god who is subject to bribes, and who 
rules by whims and fiats. 

Prayer, too, among primeval men became a mechan- 
ical device for gaining favors, an entity separate from 
the desire of man, a medium of exchange. But the pop- 



180 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

ular ideas of prayer to-day are not essentially different. 
Not to speak of those who count their beads as a man 
would count his money, there is essentially no difference 
even in Protestant circles. Even among men who ought 
to know better, prayer is estimated by its length, its 
number of details. The man who says many prayers is 
still supposed to be the saint, though he may be coarse 
and cruel and without any real goodness or reverence. 
Prayers are stock in trade, partly to be used to buy up 
favors of the Almighty, and partly to buy up influence 
among men. Even prayer-books are supposed to be 
very holy things in themselves, and many are the pious 
stories told concerning the lives they have saved in battle 
when carried over the heart. 

We have already seen that among the ancients prayer 
was used for the most selfish purposes. We cannot stop 
to make comparison in all details, but there is abundant 
evidence that prayer is still used for the most selfish rea- 
sons. When a man asks for rain that may injure his 
neighbor's crops, it is not one particle more holy, even if 
ended with the name of Jesus, than the Moslem's prayer 
for curses on infidels. It would be difficult to overesti- 
mate how much selfishness children have learned through 
the prayer theory which is so popular. They are told 
they can have anything they want ; and so, no matter if 
the farmer's grass may be dying for want of rain and 
his flocks famishing for water, the little selfish tyrant 
with his little prayer-machine concludes to make his god 
not have it rain, because he wants to go to a picnic. 
Even in a higher sense, can there be anything more self- 
ish than this everlasting talk about " saving one's soul," 
— to use the ordinary phrase, "giving God no rest" in 
order that some imaginary forgiveness may be obtained? 



PRAYER. 187 

The men of antiquity used prayer as a means of injur- 
ing or destroying their enemies. But we need not 
search very long to find men, in churches, who use their 
prayers in order to thunder out their wrath upon ene- 
mies. No name of God has been more often used than 
that of the " God of battles." No phrase is more often 
quoted than the old Hebrew one that he rules in the 
armies of heaven, and that " Jehovah is a man of war." 
Many times, God is implored to aid a certain side in a 
battle ; that is, to murder men and leave women widows 
and children orphans, and, as if he needed a great deal 
of urging, he is coaxed and almost threatened, in order 
to induce him to " make bare his arm." The polemical 
partisan preacher will use his prayer in order to pour 
out the vials of his wrath upon some political enemy. 
A clergyman recently asked the Almighty to " forgive, 
if thou canst, the sins of our governor"; that is to say, 
a man will take a cowardly retreat behind a custom 
called prayer, to slander a man who has no opportunity 
to answer back. This is no pleasant theme to which to 
allude ; but, as we hear so much to-day about the loss of 
faith in prayer on the part of rationalists, it is quite 
important to see what it is we are losing. It would be a 
blessed loss, surely, if the average prayer should forever 
cease. In traditional churches, every quarrel must be 
preceded with prayer, and that prayer, too, is quite often 
an argument in behalf of a client. There is perhaps 
more latent slander in the average prayer than in ordi- 
nary conversation. The whole custom of publicly pray- 
ing for individuals is simply cruel and often slanderous. 
Not to weary you, let me call your attention to one 
example. Dr. Crosby gave a lecture in Tremont Tern- 



188 THE gospel of law. 

pie in favor of a calm view of temperance. His calm 
view did not suit some extremists. Tt is reported that 
on the following week a distinguished clergyman of 

Orthodoxy uttered this prayer: "Bless that Rip Van 
Winkle of the temperance cause who was here on a 
recent occasion, and give him a baptism of common- 
sense, to teach him that Christ was not a gluttonous 
man nor a wine-bibber, and to let the light of modern 
times shine in upon his dark and benighted mind." 
Now, it is difficult to see much difference between 
such a prayer and that of the Moslem or the ancient 
savage, when he asked a curse upon his enemies. There 
is not one spark of aspiration in it, not one suggestion 
of ideality or reverence. We hear much about irrever- 
ence to-day from traditional believers, but is there any 
reverence in that familiar way with which men use the 
name of the Infinite to express their petty spites and 
propagate their narrow dogmas? All true men are 
reverent ; but the really reverent man is so hushed 
before the Mystery, so full of sad wonder and longing, 
that sometimes he cannot speak at all, and, if he speaks, 
it is with bated breath and gentle words and with a 
broad tenderness and charity. 

But let us notice positively the errors underlying this 
church doctrine. 

In the first place, then, prayer, as popularly conceived, 
is founded on a lack of faith. It is true that praying 
people pretend to have the monopoly of faith ; but real 
faith must include confidence in the infinite power and 
laws of the universe, confidence that certain natural 
causes will produce certain effects. The man of faith 
believes that when he has done the best he can, when he 



PRAYER. 18D 

lives up to the best he sees, he need not fret himself. 
But, according to the prayer theory, God is not to be 
trusted that way. If he is not coaxed and flattered, he 
is likely to become angry and let the universe go to eter- 
nal ruin. God, we are told, is our creator, and placed us 
here ; but it will not do to trust him to take care of us. 
Pie might forget his business, if he were not continually 
urged. This, we are told, is faith in God. 

I do not wish to ignore any sentiment in this matter, 
because sentiment has its proper place. But, with full 
recognition of a parent's deep, anxious love for an absent 
child, for instance, which is the deepest faith, — to feel 
that we must move a god to do something in a child's 
behalf, or to feel that, when we have used all rational 
means, then, even when we are dead, the dear ones can 
never drift beyond universal law and the Supreme 
Power ? 

But this popular prayer theory persistently robs us of 
all faith in the laws of the universe. Some of us can go 
about our accustomed labor, because we believe that 
there is such a stability about things that certain conduct 
will invariably produce certain results. But how could 
the painter ever sit down before his easel, if he really 
thought that God answered prayer by the suspension of 
laws? He paints his picture, believing firmly in the 
laws in regard to the effect of light. Do you ask what 
this has to do with the answer to prayer ? Consider for 
one moment. TVe are told that, in answer to prayer, 
God will make a storm at sea to cease. Now, what is 
the cause of a storm at sea? In the first place, it is the 
currents of air, or the wind, acting upon the body of 
waters. But there would be no winds, if it were not for 



190 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

the effects of the heat of the sun upon different portions 
of the earth's surface. But there would he no solar ra- 
diations, that is, no heat, were it not for the mutual 
gravitation of the parts of the body of the sun. So the 
real cause of the storm at sea lies back in the laws of the 
sun. In order, therefore, that Jones or Smith should 
get an answer to his prayer to have the storm cease, it is 
necessary to change the nature of the sun. But, when 
that is changed, the painter loses his faith in the laws of 
light, and can no more venture to attempt a picture. 
He has no assurance that Jones and Smith may not con- 
clude any day to have the whole laws of the universe 
changed. Now, we must remember that, according to 
the prayer theory, God is not the real ruler of the uni- 
verse, but the church-members, Jones and Smith, be- 
cause we are told by high authority that prayer is the 
power that moves the hand that moves the world. So 
God is a mere agent, and the real pow r ers are the men 
who pray. Consequently, our universe is under the con- 
trol of the prayer-meeting, and we know not what day 
bread may become poison and arsenic palatable, be- 
cause the cause of death by consumption or cholera is 
essentially the same as death by arsenic, and yet we hear 
that prayer can save the sick. But, in order that it 
may save them, the properties of bad food and weak 
lungs must be changed, the world must become a world 
of chance, and arsenic may become any day the bread of 
life. For myself, if I believed in direct answer to prayer, 
I should give up faith in the universe, because the men 
of the most faith in prayer are often the most ignorant 
ones in the community. The les3 they know about the 
laws of things, the greater wall be their credulity, and, 



PRAM i: 191 

by their "presto, change !" Emerson becomes a beggar 
because he is too intellectual, and Pomeroy becomes a 
saint, like Paul. 

But the believers in the prayer theory say that God 
can do anything he pleases, when we suggest that this 
is a universe of law, and that he can easily suspend 
a law or make a new one. We need not take time to 
answer such an assertion. The fact is that, whatever 
might be the method of the universe, we are bound to 
observe how things are ; and the actual fact is that the 
universe works always and everywhere by regular laws 
which are never suspended. The proposition to be 
proved, therefore, is not what might be done, but that 
God does suspend regular laws in answer to prayer. In 
regard to that point, it is sufficient to state that there is 
not a well-authenticated case on record that any law of 
the universe was ever suspended. No intelligent man 
ever saw a law of the universe suspended, no sick man 
was ever cured by prayer, no plague was ever stayed, no 
storm was ever made to be quiet. All accounts of the 
suspensions of law in answer to prayer have either come 
out of a past in which men knew nothing about the nat- 
ure of evidence, and rest on records that are unreliable, 
or else come to-day from nervous, credulous men and 
women. Every one to-day, if the truth were known, 
has its origin in ignorance or fraud or credulity. Un- 
doubtedly, the hope or faith of a man has an influence 
upon certain kinds of disease. Many local diseases are 
undoubtedly affected when by any means, however sim- 
ple, the mind is filled with confidence enough to create 
effort. But, as Dr. Hammond has well shown in regard 
to the cures at Lourdes, France, no chronic cases have 



102 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

been cured. Many diseases are largely caused, or al 
lowed to remain, because of despondency or a laek of 
activity. Remove the despondency and fill the mind 
with hope, and the patient will put forth the very effort 
that was needed all the time. There was an excellent 
opportunity for the believers in literal answers to prayer 
to prove their theory true by accepting the plan of 
Sir Henry Thompson, through his friend, Prof. Tyndall. 
That gentleman very fairly proposed that the matter be 
tested by all praying men asking for the recovery to 
health of all in a certain ward or hospital, but believers 
did not venture to accept the test. The test has been 
already made practically however in the case of Presi- 
dent Garfield, who had more prayers offered for his re- 
covery than were perhaps ever said in behalf of one 
man. 

But there is the best of evidence that the world of 
mind has its laws, too, just as exact as the world of mat- 
ter, and that there is no short road to perfection or pur- 
ity, no miraculous influence on human thought, any 
more than there are miracles in the physical universe. 
All these wonderful answers to prayer can be explained 
in exact consistency with the laws of mind. Mr. Moody 
asks his god to influence the multitude, but he takes care 
to let the multitude hear him ask, and hear his arguments 
for his belief, and also to touch the emotions by the kind 
of music that would naturally influence men of a certain 
class. George Miiller pretends that he has kept up his 
orphan school in England simply by praying for money ; 
but he takes care to advertise the fact that such is his 
method, and he knows perfectly well that is the best 
way to persuade certain people to give their money. 



PRAYER. L93 

Not only is it true that there is never any suspension of 
law in answer to prayer, but such an idea is founded on 
absurdity. The only reason this doctrine, like many 
others, still holds possession of so many minds is because 
men will not stop to think long enough to see the conse- 
quences of their own logic. A sailing vessel starts from 
New York to Liverpool. In mid-ocean, it meets a vessel 
going in the opposite direction. The masters of both 
vessels are firm believers in answers to prayer. The 
captain in the vessel for Liverpool prays for a favorable 
wind, the other master prays for a wind to suit his ves- 
sel. But unless a wind can blow in two directions at 
the same time and place, it would be exceedingly diffi- 
cult for the controller of the winds to answer the two 
prayers. Of course, a compromise might be effected, 
and a side wind made to blow. But here comes another 
vessel from the south seas, with a captain praying for a 
favorable wind too, and he finds a wind blowing straight 
against him. No wonder we are to ask no questions 
about prayer, but are to shut our eyes and become cred- 
ulous. 

But the popular theory of prayer tends to immorality. 
It tends to make men trust in an artifice to obtain cer- 
tain results, instead of seeking to obey the natural laws 
under which they are born. No one can estimate how 
much of the carelessness and indolence and immorality 
of society is caused by the belief that by a prayer all the 
evils of a life can be removed. Even in its most spiritual 
form, the idea that in answer to prayer a god will do 
something for us directly, which we ought to do for our- 
selves, is positively injurious. Now, what are spiritual 
blessings ? A man has spiritual culture in the only real 



194 THE GOSPEL <>I LAW. 

sense, when his whole nature is perfectly developed and 
brought into moral harmony. In older to be "spiritu- 
ally blessed," to use that common phrase, a man must 
have right ideas; that is, he must be a careful thinker, 
he must have control of his passions and appetites, he 
must cultivate his aspiring and emotional nature in con- 
sistency with truth. He is a good man in a true sense, 
when he is good for all for which men exist. But no 
man can obtain culture by prayer. It takes years of 
study to obtain the ideas that are necessary for culture, 
it takes discipline and self-control to bring the passions 
into subjection, it takes a fine nature, partly received by 
inheritance and partly formed by training, to have noble 
aspirations. According to the prayer theory, however, 
there is some short cut to this manly culture. A man 
is not to spend long years of study and self-control in 
order to make himself pure and thoughtful and noble, 
but a god is to do it for him instantaneously. As a con- 
sequence, the men who really accept this idea give up 
their own self-culture, and trust in a form. Arsenic is 
a poison when taken into the system, drunkenness de- 
grades, sensualism destroys both mind and body, a 
failure to read books and cultivate thought-power will 
leave men in ignorance, trifling with the holiest emo- 
tions at last brings heartache, the failure to follow con- 
science lowers the whole moral nature. But, just so 
long as men think that by some moment's cry they 
can move a god to change the natural consequences of 
conduct and keep their evil from its destructive work, 
just so long will it tend to immorality. Moreover 
there are men who deliberately do wrong with the feel- 
ing that by a prayer they can receive forgiveness and 
everything will be as well as before. 



PRAYER. 195 

But, now, the question arises, Will the intelligent man 
of the future pray? Is there any reality in prayer? 
Already, for reasons given, some men think the custom 
is injurious. Undoubtedly in its present form, and with 
the common idea in regard to it, prayer is often in- 
jurious. But, when men have divested it of the old 
ideas, there may be something, even from the most sci- 
entific stand-point, which will be real and helpful, and 
which, on the subjective side, may be akin to prayer. 
Man is a creature of aspiration, and the expression of 
that aspiration is the real prayer of the rationalist. It 
is perfectly legitimate that the longing for an ideal good- 
ness and beauty should sometimes be expressed. Man 
has a longing for a larger and a deeper life ; he has a 
consciousness, too, of dependence on a Power beyond 
and above himself; he wants to be more and larger; he 
feels, too, that he is not isolated, that he is connected in 
some mysterious way with a great, infinite life. After 
men have followed their intellects, and have done all 
that can be proved good, they still feel the need of some- 
thing more and beyond. There is often a spontaneous 
cry of the nature after ideal love and goodness and 
purity. No matter if men know that no mere desire 
will change a divine power or law, they desire because 
they cannot help it. If their desire is strong, they can- 
not help sometimes putting it into words. Our desires 
may not be uttered perhaps at regular periods or in set 
phrases ; but whether it be a Tyndall viewing the clouds 
on the sun-kissed Alps and thinking over the Mystery, or 
a loving mother looking over the sea beyond which is 
her boy, or a tempted, scarred man, there are times when 
the aspiring nature asserts itself, and by a mighty im- 



190 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

pulse carries the inner life beyond itself. But is it asked 
whether or not men will still use words? We might as 
well ask whether or not the lover shall put his feelings 
into words or only into smiles and kisses and loving 
deeds. There is no formal law whatever in the realm of 
feeling. Here is where the Church well-nigh kills out all 
aspiration. In very honesty, intelligent men will not be- 
come word-worshippers, and be told whether or not they 
must coin their deep heart-longings into formal words 
and dogmas. And so we are in danger of overlooking 
our poetical nature in defence of personal liberty. Most 
men will sometimes express their feelings by language. 
But, as we may be the most charmed by starlight and si- 
lence and sweet, rich music when we cannot utter our 
thought, so we may be reaching out the farthest toward 
the Infinite Beauty and Truth when we cannot say all 
we wish or feel. Most men some time in life must utter 
deep heart-longings. Suffice it to say that we will some- 
times in one moment feel a sense of Infinite Beauty 
which we did not experience in whole years of formal 
worship. Prayer is a man's own secret, and it is no 
man's business whether we say words or not. Conduct 
is the only test of character. As Coleridge says, — 

" He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small." 

Just here, we have the explanation of the value of 
prayer to sincere people, who may have false ideas. 
They do not change a god, as they suppose, or make him 
do something ; but they do change themselves, if they 
are spontaneous and real. The utterance of a sincere 



PRAYER. 197 

aspiration is really the pouring out of the nature toward 
the accomplishment of an object. It is an intense pledge 
of the whole nature to use the means to obtain the de- 
sired object. Christian people have not been moving 
Deity, as they supposed, but only moving themselves. 
The indirect effect of conduct is often more valuable 
than the direct. All readers of Tom Brown? s School- 
days at Rugby must remember the incident where the 
pale-faced boy dared to kneel down at night before his 
laughing comrades to say his prayer. Undoubtedly that 
boy was blessed in that action. It was not because 
kneeling down on a cold floor is especially helpful, or 
because he had a direct answer to his prayer; but be- 
cause, as he had been in the habit of it before, it would 
have been cowardly not to have followed his conscience. 
It is always personally better to follow our conscience, — 
to pray if conscience dictates, not to pray if conscience 
dictates. 

But you will ask what meaning there is in a public 
form. None whatever as a means of moving Deity, but 
there might be value in it as an expression of human as- 
piration. It is in consistency with the highest develop- 
ment of society that men should unite in whatever is 
beautiful and helpful. Man is a creature of aspiration, 
and man is a social being. So it is perfectly legitimate 
that men should come together to cultivate and express 
their higher nature. In order to add to human joy, 
music has become an art by which the grandest expres- 
sions of melody and harmony are preserved and used by 
men in common. Men feel that there is a pleasure and 
a benefit in uniting together and having their emotional 
nature satisfied by the expression of the best music. 



L98 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

The best men, too, can find a meaning in true poetry, 
and can enter into its spirit, even if it is not strictly sci- 
entific. We are not all intellect, and our emotional nat- 
ure has its just claims, which ought to be satisfied when 
it can be done in consistency with truth. So it might 
be possible to express together our deepest aspirations. 
Some man of a poetical insight may utter the aspiration 
of all, just as the emotional nature of all might find an 
outlet through a poem or anthem. Mr. Tyndall, after 
showing the error in the present theory of prayer, 
shows, too, that it might be a reality, at least on its sub- 
jective side. He says: "It is not my habit of mind 
to think otherwise than solemnly of the feeling which 
prompts prayer. It is a power I should like to see 
guided, not extinguished ; devoted to practicable objects 
instead of wasted upon air. In some form or another 
not yet evident, it may as alleged be necessary to man's 
highest culture." But there will be no dogmatic prayer 
in the old sense, in the Church of the Future. Not 
many men can exjn'ess the aspiration and feeling of a 
congregation. No man is fit to attempt an utterance 
of the human heart who cannot express the feeling 
and hope of a Jew or honest infidel, as much as of a 
Christian, who does not utter the universal aspiration. 
In the future, I doubt not, the rationalist will have his 
public form of service as a substitute for the old prayer. 
Of course, it will not be a dogmatic prayer-book, or a 
sacrifice offered in the name of Jesus, but it will be 
something expressive of the universal unrest and long- 
ing. Because rationalists, too, have something besides 
an intellect, and how to satisfy all of their nature and 
yet be true to that intellect is a problem to be solved. 



PRAYER. 199 

In the mean time, we will offer up no dogmatic church 
prayer, but we will nevertheless keep back no real desire 
after truth and moral beauty that is trying to utter itself; 
and we will never fear to express or have expressed for 
us a real aspiration for a deeper life. 



MORALITY. 



Although we hear so much concerning the probable 
danger to morals occasioned by a disbelief in the doc- 
trines of the Church, yet the Church itself has no 
doctrine of morality. Look through the creeds and con- 
fessions of the Church, and you will find the doctrines of 
regeneration, of the atonement, of conversion, doctrines 
about Jesus and God and the Bible, but no doctrine of 
morality. Let us distinctly understand this statement. 
There are many moral people in the churches, morals 
are taught by some preachers and teachers, there are 
moral sentiments and precepts; but, in the whole Chris- 
tian scheme of salvation, as upheld by the popular 
Church, there is no doctrine of morality. 

If morals are treated anywhere in the churches, it is 
in an irregular, disconnected way. It is no part of any 
church system ; and any discussion of morals must come 
in as a side issue, and does actually come in with an apol- 
ogy in the traditional churches. Let us understand the 
full significance of this fact. We are told to-day that a 
disbelief in old dogmas is endangering the morals of 
society, that morality depends upon maintaining the 
belief in an old system of doctrine. But we discover 
that, when we come to examine that system of doctrine, 
we do not find in it anything about morals whatever. 

The Church does not directly demand morality of 



MORALITY. 201 

men who would be admitted into its membership. It has 
no written formal declaration on the subject. A man 
may be immoral through his whole nature, he may have 
no clear ideas in regard to good conduct, he may have 
an organism that makes it impossible immediately to be 
moral; but, if he will profess a belief in certain doctri- 
nal religious statements, he may, so far as any organic 
law of the Church is concerned, be received into its 
membership. " Only believe " is all that will be required 
of him, and that belief will not necessarily be anything 
in regard to morals. If the living officers of a church 
or its living members wish to reject him, they must 
accomplish their desire by indirection, simply because 
there is no church doctrine of morality. Faith is set 
above conduct, and so-called religion set above morality. 
To any one who understands the popular theological 
system, it will not seem strange that there should be no 
such doctrine. The mission of the Church is in an en- 
tirely different direction. Its object is to save men from 
" the wrath of God " for a place called heaven. It is 
true there is much talk of saving men from something 
called "sin," but this sin is a fictitious creation. There 
is no thought in the regular church sense of salvation 
that men are to be saved from bad appetites and impure 
homes and disease and ignorance, and false political and 
social ideas. Some church-members are good philan- 
thropists; but the Church does not consider their phi- 
lanthropy the regular work of salvation. The " sin " of 
the Church is something that shuts men away from God 
and keeps them out of heaven. In order to get rid of 
that sin, a special scheme is upheld, which is expressed 
in certain doctrines. Jesus died on a cross, and by his 



20'2 TUE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

atonement men may be saved from their sin and be 
forgiven. But, in order that this atonement may be 
efficacious, men must believe. There is no other way 
of escape but in that belief. As a logical consequence, 
there is no room for morality in the " scheme." If men 
begin to turn their attention to the study of good con- 
duct as necessary, it will naturally turn their attention 
away from "the cross." So in the past, and even still, 
morality has been avoided as the rival of the scheme of 
salvation by faith. Indeed, men and women are told 
that, no matter how kind and just and pure and intelli- 
gent they may be, no matter how good husbands or 
wives or citizens or friends, it is all of no avail and even 
injurious, if it keeps them from trusting in Jesus. 

The old Church of the middle ages taught the peo- 
ple to turn their attention to the forms and services of 
pope and priest and church, and made implicit belief in 
them the principal thing. It had no morality in any 
scientific or natural sense. If it dwelt on conduct, it 
was artificial church conduct, and not the natural con- 
duct in every-day life. Then, the Reformer Luther only 
changed the object of belief. A man must absolutely 
believe in Jesus ; and, according to his theory, morality 
was dangerous, because it tended to take away the power 
of the grace of God. Faith was everything, and moral- 
ity nothing. The revivalist will tell you in the plainest 
terms that there is no enemy to Jesus so great as the 
moral man in his audience, because by trusting in his 
morality and by his real worth he is unconsciously 
teaching the young that some men can be good without 
the scheme of salvation. He is therefore by his noble 
life directly giving a denial to the assertion that belief 



MORALITY. 203 

in Jesus or in dogmas is necessary, in order to be really 
good. 

It is true that the Calvinists have made a place in 
their scheme for what they call "good works." But 
these good works are only the evidences of faith, and 
of no moral value in themselves. "Good works are 
only such as God has commanded in His Holy Word," 
and might therefore be actually immoral, judged by the 
definition that morality relates to good conduct between 
man and man. Because, according to what they call 
14 God's Holy Word," their god commands things which 
are positively immoral and coarse and cruel. More- 
over, according to this theory too, morality is in itself 
of no value, because works done by the unconverted, 
though they " be things which God commands, are sin- 
ful." The Westminster Confession then declares, in 
language worthy of some humorist, that, although 
merely moral men sin even when they do good works, 
yet the neglect of them is more sinful. The poor mor- 
alist is therefore sinful if he does, and sinful if he does 
not, perform certain good works, or to use the famous 
rhyme, applying it to the moralist who does not happen 
to be of the elect : — 

" You'll be damned if you do, 
And you'll be damned if you don't." 

You may take your choice of methods, but there is 
uo particular encouragement to morality. The crucial 
point, however, is that there is no recognition of moral- 
ity in any natural sense of good conduct, but of only 
certain artificial and arbitrarily commanded good works, 
which might be scientifically proved immoral, and which 
are of no value except to prove that a man has faith. 



204 THE GOSPKL OF LAW. 

The Arminian seemingly avoids this confusion, and 
talks about "doing" something to save the soul; but 
really he recognizes no morality as morality. Men are 
to do things to please Jesus, and simply because it will 
please Jesus, though it might have an immoral influence 
on society. According to this system, the good works 
are merely something taken along with faith to aid in 
pleasing God or Jesus, and getting to heaven. Morality, 
meaning such conduct as can be proved absolutely good 
among men, is never considered. 

But the reason that the Church has no distinct doc- 
trine of morals can be found when we look at the origin 
of church theology. Historically there is no connection 
whatever between morality and religion. In other words, 
the Church was not organized at the first with any inten- 
tion of either teaching or upholding morals. Remember 
morality has reference to conduct between men, which 
can be proved good. Religion has always had some ref- 
erence to a god, or gods. In the past, men supposed 
that their dead chief was the god of their tribe. His 
children would then be considered gods or the sons 
of god. In the Russian catechism, it is declared that 
the Emperor is the representative and equal of God 
Almighty, and he is called "God upon earth." The 
title, " The Son of Heaven," used in Oriental countries 
in speaking of the Ruler, expresses the same idea. The 
names, God, Lord, Divinity, were originally given to the 
King, who was the God-King. All the law there was 
over the people was the commandment of the Ruler, 
who was a god, or the son of a god. Our very latest 
church teaching about the special divine appointment of 
civil rulers is derived from this original conception. 



MORALITY. 205 

Originally there was no such thing as Ethics, in our 
modern souse. Men did not think of sitting down and 
devising a code of morals for the good of the people. 
All our codes, whether Roman or Hindu or Hebrew, 
are the results of a long development. The idea that 
the Deity dictated a code of morals, like the laws of 
Menu or the Ten Commandments of Moses, was an after- 
thought. Sir Henry Maine, in his work on Ancient 
Lair, says that originally everything was decided by a 
direct judgment of the king or chief. These laws were 
Themistes, special decisions, supposed to be handed down 
by inspiration to the king. The term " a law " does not 
occur in Homer, but only words signifying judgments 
or decisions of rulers. Historically, "case" law precedes 
" statute " law, and the office of judge is more ancient 
than that of the framer of codes. Now, these facts are 
full of significance. Our ideas of morality are compara- 
tively modern. In the past, of course, certain conduct 
was considered important ; but it was religious conduct, 
such as in some way would bring power to the ruler or 
divinity. The people were taught to do certain things 
to appease the gods or to gain favor from them, and nat- 
ural morality was not considered. All commandments 
were with reference to the destruction of the king's en- 
emies, or enemies of the tribal deity, or for the purpose 
of adding power to the deity. Those who are familiar 
with the Old Testament well know that the Hebrews 
were no exception. All their regulations were made 
with reference to Jahveh. It is true that some of the 
Jewish regulations and commandments were good ; but 
they were not enforced then because they were good, 
but because it would please their god. Modern apolo- 



206 THE GOSPEL OP LAW. 

gists for the Old Testament morality try to show to-day 
the moral value of some of the judicial law of the Jews, 
but originally that law was enforced for no such reason. 
Jahveh wanted a peculiar people for himself, and there- 
fore he commanded certain things. If he commanded 
something immoral, too, it was for exactly the same rea- 
son. The Jews were not to marry with other nations: 
they were to take away lands from other tribes by force 
or trickery, simply to please their god. It is true Jah- 
veh said not to steal and not to murder; but, according 
to the records, he also told the Hebrews to rob the 
Egyptians, he also commanded the people to kill men 
among their enemies and the boy children and the 
married women, and keep the virgins to themselves. 
We see the remnants of the old theory even in our own 
day. The Sabbath is upheld among church people, not 
primarily because it is a valuable day, but because God 
once commanded it. In other words, the church Sab- 
bath, in distinction from the rational human Sunday, is 
upheld because Jahveh commanded it, and simply be- 
cause he commanded it. 

The historical Christian Church has been no exception. 
Ecclesiastical virtues, measured by a fictitious standard, 
have been set up against natural good conduct. The 
early Church soon began to live for heaven, and con- 
demned the world as unholy. A man who left his wife 
and shut himself off in a monk's cell in order to get 
ready for heaven was the ideal good man of the past. 
Commerce, science, human love, and genuine earthly 
pleasure were condemned as contrary to the religion 
which was solely to lead men to get ready for heaven. 
The cries of a suffering humanity for light and love and 



MORALITY. 207 

help in this life have been drowned in songs of praise to 
the gods; and men have been left in ignorance and 
women without love, in order that church coffers might 
be filled, and cathedrals, chapels, and convents might be 
erected. If there has been any morality in the Church, 
it has come in at some back door, and merely because it 
might bring honor to religion. The desire to help men 
here and now for their own sake has never directly com- 
manded the attention of the Church. The most cruel 
deeds of the world have been done in the name of re- 
ligion. 

Every moral reform of the world has been begun out- 
side the conservative Church, and has succeeded in spite 
of it. The reform against slavery was begun in the face 
of the curses and opposition of American churches. All 
political and mental liberty has been gained in spite and 
not because of an authoritative ministry and priesthood; 
and the science which gives the light by which alone 
men can ever be moral has always been opposed by the 
churches. 

The reason, then, that there is no church doctrine of 
morality is because the Church was originally organized 
for another purpose. Morality pertains to this world; 
and the Church tells about another world, and condemns 
this one. Morality deals with the present happiness of 
men ; but the Church, when it is logical, declares that 
natural happiness is wrong. Morality shows the value 
of well-proved good conduct, but the Church talks of a 
salvation in which "mere morality" has no place. 

But, although technically there is no church doctrine 
of -morality in the same sense that there is a doctrine 
about God and the Bible, yet there are certain ideas and 



208 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

assertions about morality in society which it is impor- 
tant for us to notice. It is difficult to take up miscella- 
neous theories which are floating about the world and 
treat them in any logical manner, and it will not be pos- 
sible to take up in order and discuss by name every so- 
called school or philosophy of morals. 

I wish, however, to consider the essential principles 
underlying the most prominent, and, for the sake of as 
much brevity and clearness as possible, shall group them 
under three general theories : — 

I. There is the theory or assumption that morality is 
founded upon theology or religious belief. . It is declared 
that moral laws are special and revealed commandments 
of a god. The objection is often made against the ra- 
tionalism of our day that it destroys a belief in super- 
natural revelation, and therefore destroys the basis of 
morals. The assumption is, therefore, that unless 
Jahveh, for instance, once gave certain laws to Moses 
upon a table of stone on a mountain, and unless men 
believe that such was the fact, our basis for morals is 
gone. A stronger assertion still is that some men are 
giving up their belief in a personal god entirely, and in 
immortality, and therefore the morals of society are in 
danger. The supposition underlying all these state- 
ments is that morality is based on a belief in certain 
religious or theological dogmas. Now, in any notice 
of such a theory, let us keep things that differ entirely 
distinct. The questions in regard to the existence of 
God and the reality of a future life must be settled on 
their own merits; and I assert nothing here either way 
in regard to them, when I declare that morality h.-is 
nothing whatever to do directly with either a belief in 



MORALITY. 209 

God or in immortality. Indeed, it can be shown that 
a disbelief in the god of the Bible may tend to increase 
morality. 

It is in the interest of morals that men should cease 
to believe that morality depends upon a belief in the 
statement that a god once gave a moral law from Sinai. 
Because whoever that god was, he was the same one 
who commanded Abraham to murder his own son, who 
gave special favor to a Jacob whose whole life was full 
of deceit and cruelty, who commanded Jews not to 
spare men, women, nor sucklings among their enemies, 
who told Moses to hang the heads of those destroyed 
in the sun, so that his fierce anger might be removed, 
and who put a lying spirit into the heart of prophets. 
Instead of morals being founded on the belief in a the- 
ory that Jahveh once gave a law literally from a moun- 
tain, it will be in the interest of morality to teach men 
that such records are utterly unreliable, that there never 
was such a god, and that the real Deity of the Universe 
never gave such commandments. 

But there are positive reasons to show that morality 
does not depend upon religious belief. We have already 
seen that in primitive times men were interested in such 
conduct as had reference to their tribal god or ruler. 
Tylor, in his Primitive Culture, shows that the popu- 
lar idea, that the moral government of the Universe is 
a tenet of religion, is a mistaken one. Primitive relig- 
ion had no ethical element. Even the lowest races, of 
course, had some kind of a morality, some code of mor- 
als; but this morality stood on its own ground of public 
opinion, independent of religious beliefs and rites. " The 
lower animism is not immoral, it is unmoral " ; that is, 
it had nothing directly to do with morality. In civilized 



210 THE GOSPEL <>F LAW. 

communities, of course, morality w recognized among re- 
ligious people; but the morality has grown up indepen- 
dently, and quite often in opposition to the traditional 
religious belief, and then at last lias been claimed as a 
part of religion. Instead of religious belief in itself 
causing morality, the very converse is true, — that moral- 
ity, discovered by experience, has helped to improve the 
religious belief. Instead of the arbitrary god of the 
Church having promulgated morality by revelations, 
good men have been trying to make that god moral. So 
long as the world was governed principally by theologi- 
cal declarations or commands, so long was the world im- 
moral. The old reformers openly avowed that virtue 
was not necessarily moral. Virtue, according to Calvin, 
was adherence to a divine law, obedience to God : a 
thing was good because God willed it, and simply be- 
cause he willed it. It might be moral and it might be 
immoral; for God, it was supposed, w r as under no law 
but his own will. Luther told Erasmus that God had a 
full right to do what would be hateful to men, as he was 
not bound by his own laws. 

It is only during comparatively modern times that 
men have tried to show that God was moral. But, if 
God has not been considered moral, then his special fiats 
would not necessarily contain morality. If moral con- 
duct should happen to bring him more honor, then he 
might command it, but not otherwise. The Romish 
Church has deliberately taught that falsehood and decep- 
tion were right, if either would advance the interests of 
the Church.* The Protestant Church now teaches, 

• This fact is of course well known to all familiar with church history. 
The general reader can refer to Lecky's nationalism in Europe, vol. i. f 
pp. 393, 395, with notes. Read also Provincial Letters of Pascal (a 






MORALITY. 211 

through hundreds of her ministers, that it is not best to 
tell all the truth about traditional beliefs, lest it might 
disturb somebody and do harm to religion. "Lying for 
the glory of God " has not been confined to Romanism. 
There is no logical or historical reason for the theory 
that a belief in a god, whose character will be no better 
than the ideal of any age, is the basis of morality. 

Now let the fact be remembered here that it does 
make a difference whether a man has a belief or not, if 
he would be moral. The theory of sentimentalists, that 
belief is of no consequence, is false and dangerous. It 
is of momentous importance that men should believe 
that this Universe is builded on facts, and that it has 
regular laws which are never suspended. It is necessary 
to believe that water drowns and fire burns, and that 
certain conduct will invariably produce certain results 
for the most fundamental reasons. The moral man does 
believe in a Universal Power, working everywhere ac- 
cording to certain principles or laws. Perhaps some 
day, too, this recognition of the universal order and 
law will be considered the essence of religion. But a 
belief in a divine order and law, in the constitution of 
things, is something different from speculative theologi- 
cal dogmas. The belief in a personal god who can be 
moved by prayers and atonements is not the basis of 
morality, but tends to destroy it. The popular church 
doctrine is that in some way, by belief in a Jesus or " the 

Catholic), exposing the doctrines of Jesuits concerning " mental reserva- 
tion" and " justification of means to ends"; and also modern Jesuit text- 
book of F. (Jury,— remembering, too, that a Pope re-established the order 
of Jesuits in 1814, and that, according to the doctrine of Papal Infalli- 
bility, the decision of a Pope is infallible. About the present moral teach- 
ings of that Church, John Jay has something to say in International 
Review of February and March, 1880. 

/ 



212 TUT. GOSPEL OF LAW. 

blood," all the immoralities of a life may be overlooked 
or forgiven. Just so far as that idea is really believed, 
just so far does it tend to immorality. Because, if by 
some substitution men can be saved from the conse- 
quences of certain conduct, they will be tempted to be 
careless in their morals. No one can estimate how much 
of the immorality of modern church-members, even of 
public men, is because of the idea that is in the world 
that there is some way to obtain personal happiness and 
real success separate from good conduct. 

Because the world may be losing faith in dogmas con- 
cerning religion is therefore no proof that it may be 
losing its morality. Morality does not depend upon 
revealed commandments of a god, or upon a belief that 
any such commandments ever were supernaturally re- 
vealed. Morality has reference to conduct that can be 
proved good here and now, during the life we know for 
certain. Even if there were no god of any kind to 
ever give a command directly, no matter if, when we die, 
we sleep a sleep that never has a waking, there are rea- 
sons here and now for certain good conduct that furnish 
the basis of morals. A man who cannot be persuaded 
to morality by the natural reasons would not be governed 
by a dogma of supernatural religion. It is wonderful 
that men do not see the superficiality of the theory 
that morality depends upon a belief in special revela- 
tion. But even men who are intelligent on many ques- 
tions seem to imagine that there can be no morality after 
the belief in a supernaturally revealed moral law is gone. 
Even in the North American Review for May, 1881, we 
have an apparent argument for this theory from one who 
signs himself "A New Light Moralist." It is difficult 






MORALITY. 213 

to tell whether this writer is facetious or really in ear- 
nest. But he seems to be criticising the rational ten- 
dencies of our age, and at least makes suggestions which 
can be heard on every hand. After many sensual " ex- 
cesses," he says his conscience troubled him considera- 
bly ; but, as there was no more of the old " binding 
authority," and he did not need forgiveness any more, he 
followed an " irresistible impulse." Before noticing his 
case, would it not be worth while to consider how many 
men who believe the traditions about Moses and Sinai 
and Jonah, and all else that Orthodoxy has taught them, 
have also followed irresistible impulses? "Irresistible 
impulses" do not depend upon creeds or the lack of 
them, but are occasioned by heredity and circumstances. 
But to come to this case. What shall we do with a man 
who sees no reason for good conduct, unless conscience 
is the direct voice of God, and the Moral Law the direct 
enunciation of Jahveh? As far as his own worth is con- 
cerned, we do not see much chance for him in this uni- 
verse. The man who sees no reason for morality, unless 
he is supernaturally commanded, would not have much 
motive at best. If a man is sincere in such a theory, 
then, so far as the safety of society is concerned, the 
best thing that can be done is to put him in a place of 
confinement. If a child stands before a stone wall and 
threatens to butt out his brains against it because he has 
just discovered that God has made no special command- 
ment against it, we would feel very much like letting 
him try it for his own satisfaction, or else sending him 
to a Reform School. If a man threatens to jump over- 
board because he does not find that the ship captain has 
any printed regulations against it, we would be very 



'211 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

much tempted to let him try it, for a time at least, and 
see if he found any other reason besides special com- 
mandments against such conduct. So when a man sees 
no reason against drunkenness and sensuality, after he 
has discovered that the Bible is not an infallible book, 
we see little that can be done for him except to restrain 
him and keep him from injuring others. Among rational 
people, we would see some reason against the conduct of 
our Review writer in the wrath of the husband whose 
wife he proposed to marry, or in the bad effects of such 
conduct upon society; we would see some argument 
against his drunkenness, in the fact that it would weaken 
his body and mind, and destroy his influence and happi- 
ness. If such realities as these had no influence, it is 
difficult to see how he could be helped by a belief that 
conscience is literally the voice of God, or that the Ten 
Commandments were written by the linger of Jahveh.* 
A man who sees no good reason for morality in a life 
which he expects to last seventy or ninety years would 
see no good reason, if it were to be projected beyond the 
grave. Indeed, the dim distance of the life beyond 
would make a belief in it too weak to have much power. 

♦The above was written and printed in May, 1881, soon after the Review 
article appeared. I have since learned that the writer of the article was 
also the writer of several articles of a similar import, and is perhaps a 
college president. That, however, if true, does not create any necessity 
for a change in my argument, which is directed against the persn/ia. in the 
Review who felt no more any "binding authority" to restrain himself. 
If the Review writer is, as is supposed, one who is anxious to revive the 
Scottish philosophy, his attempt to be humorous over morality is success- 
ful in a different way from what he intended. The world has improved in 
morality in proportion to the decay of that philosophy; and Lecky quote- 
from Laing, showing that Scotland and Sweden, which have been the- 
most influenced by the Scottish theology, have been in important particu- 
lars the most immoral nations in Europe. 



MORALITY. 215 

A man who sees no reason for good conduct in a per- 
sonal child or a personal friend, or a human society 
made up of persons, would see no reason because he hap- 
pened to believe in a personal god. Are not temper- 
ance and kindness and good health and social happiness 
realities, unless we are sure this world is the vestibule to 
heaven and hell? Is not pure human love sweet and 
sacred, even if the Infinite Power in this universe is not 
a person ? 

But we are asked, " Is there no danger to morality in 
the loss of old religious beliefs, even if those beliefs are 
false?" Most certainly there is always real danger in 
this universe with thoughtless people. It is a danger- 
ous universe for people who will not open their eyes to 
observe consequences. Fire and water are dangerous; 
and so are human love and ambition and passion, if men 
do not know what to do with them. Some people 
whose morality has been built upon commandments 
will likely become reckless for a time, when they dis- 
cover that those commandments, were not supernaturally 
given. But none are helping to increase the danger 
more than those who are teaching the people that 
there is no basis for morals except in a theology which 
is continually changing its base. How is it to help weak 
men to teach them that the only basis for good conduct 
is a theological system whose foundations are being 
destroyed by the stern logic of eternal truth? 

II. Closely allied with this theory is the one that mo- 
rality is created by artificial regulations and arbitrary en- 
actments. This theory assumes a variety of forms, some 
of which we can only suggest. It is supposed, for in- 
stance, that morality is arbitrarily created. This idea 



210 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

among religious people grows out of the theory that 
God has given certain external commands. He might 
have just as well commanded something else, if he had 
seen proper; but this is his scheme for making men 
moral. Morals are therefore purely the result of arbi- 
trary decisions. Instead, therefore, of studying men and 
women to see what would really make them happy, and 
studying the natural law of things, reformers continually 
search about for written precepts which are supposed to 
be divine. Instead of examining the nature of alcohol 
and its natural effect and its legitimate use, men ar< 
ceedingly anxious to find out whether the wine Jesus 
drank at Cana of Galilee was fermented or not, and also 
the exact meaning of Hebrew and Greek texts. Men 
think that morality so absolutely depends upon written 
and spoken precepts that, if those precepts should be 
proved fallible, then, all at once, vice and crime would 
be just as moral as purity and temperance. In other 
words, it is supposed that Moses and Jesus and Solomon, 
and perhaps Paul and James, arbitrarily made morality 
for the world. Of course, with this idea, men very 
much fear any criticism uj)on old precepts, because they 
think if the precepts are proved not infallible there is 
no morality left. Even some who do not believe in re- 
ligion think that morality is purely the result of arbi- 
trary enactments. Hobbes thought that morals were 
made by acts of Parliament, or, in other words, that- 
wise men must arbitrarily decide what is moral for the 
people. These general ideas are diffused, and appear 
in all kinds of forms. Among the masses there is a 
continual desire to do something to fix up n morality. 
Legislation is the great panacea. Vice and sin must be 



MORALITY. 217 

legislated out of existence. The worst of it is, men 
often come to their decision, as to what vice and crime 
are, by the most arbitrary methods. The Mrs. Grundys 
of every town and village, cut out a code of morals just 
as arbitrarily, and as much across the bias of natural 
law, as the belle of Paris cuts out the fashionable dress 
for universal female society. It is thought that morality 
is just what noisy people arbitrarily decide it to be, and 
that men can only be governed by the most numerous 
artificial regulations. It is supposed, therefore, that mo- 
rality is a system of checks and restraints. Of course, 
morality may be aided sometimes by checks and re- 
straints and by precepts and enactments. But there 
must be a source and a basis somewhere else, or these 
will be of no use ; and morality is not a system of checks 
and restraints and of arbitrary enactments. 

It is important in this connection to notice how the 
idea has grown up that men are the most moral when 
they are the most unhappy, and when they deny them- 
selves of things which they really desire. It was origi- 
nally thought pleasing to the gods that men should deny 
themselves, and sacrifice something to gratify their dei- 
ties. So it is still assumed that there is some virtue in 
denial in itself, and that a man is not really moral when 
he follows his own inclinations. Consequently there are 
people who really think morals are in danger, if people 
are not checked continually, even in those things Avhich 
are naturally right. There are persons who assume to 
be the moral reformers of society, not because they add 
to the sum of human happiness, but because they limit 
and restrain their fellow-men. It is supposed, therefore, 
that morality is something contrary to nature, and that 



218 I m: GOSPEL 01 law. 

all natural, spontaneous pleasure is wrong. The confu- 
sion that is created in the world by this arbitrary method 
of cutting across the bias with some scheme of morals 
is quite evident. People who never travelled beyond 
their own village arbitrarily make a code of morals by 
which they make or damn reputations, while in other 
places the very things they condemn are considered 
praiseworthy. The morality of the best men in Ger- 
many or England is considered vice in New England. 
According to this theory, a man who is a saint in his 
native village in the morning, after riding five hundred 
miles in the cars, awakens the next morning to find him- 
self condemned as vicious in the town to which he goes. 
Against this whole confused theory of morals, the ra- 
tional moralist enters a protest. Morality is not created 
by any fiats of any god or of any Mrs. Grundy, of any 
Parliament or any Congress. It does not depend on 
any ancient code or any infallible book. Morals grow 
out of the nature of things. A really moral man is one 
whose conduct is in consistency with natural law. All 
conduct is good which tends to universal happiness. 
The precepts of Moses or Jesus or Confucius or Menu 
are valuable just so far as they express natural moral 
law, and just so far as they lead men to observe and 
obey that law. But all morality is discovered by experi- 
ence. Men have found out by their own experience, or 
by studying the experience of others, that certain con- 
duct is good. But morality does not depend upon enact- 
ments. If there were not a printed book in the universe, 
then, although it would temporarily create annoyance, 
it would not at all change the basis of morality. As 
a matter of fact, ancient precepts have very much less 



MORALITY. 219 

to do with our morality than is theoretically supposed. 
Actually, even the church-member does not follow moral 
laws, because of the fact that there lies on his table a 
Bible, which is supposed to be infallible. If he is pure 
and generous, it is partly because of a good parentage, 
and partly because he has discovered that it brings the 
largest happiness in the end. Some men will not tell 
lies, not because lying is forbidden in theology, but 
because they see that society could not long carry on 
business or social intercourse without veracity, and be- 
cause they would feel degraded. Some men will not 
adulterate their goods, simply because they would fear 
detection in the end, and because they discover that 
absolute honesty is necessary for mutual intercourse 
among men, and because they have learned the joy that 
comes from a clear conscience guided by the intellect. 

Morality is builded away down in the realities of hu- 
man necessity, of man's nature, and of the laws of the 
universe ; and nothing can prevail against it. Not only 
does morality lie in nature, but every attempt to check 
nature by artificial restraints tends to immorality. In- 
stead of the moral man being the one who is restrained 
by others, he is the one who has the largest liberty. He 
has the liberty of his whole nature. A man has a right 
to satisfy the desires of his whole nature ; not only so, 
but no man is moral, in the broad sense, who does not 
so satisfy his desires. All physical or mental starvation 
is proof of immorality somewhere. Morality is positive, 
not negative ; free, not restrained. The mistake of the 
arbitrary theory has been that it is repressive, and that 
it makes morality to consist in repression. But no man 
is moral in the highest sense who does not follow every 



220 the oosrEL of law. 

natural desire of his being. Why should we not be 
happy, if we can ? Why should we deny ourselves of 
that which really brings enjoyment? Who gave any 
man the authority to come in and restrain us in our 
personal liberty? I do not need to stop to tell intelli- 
gent men that some men, of course, will need to be 
restrained even by physical force. But the reason is 
simply because some men, by their vices and crimes, 
interfere with the liberties of others. Each man has 
the natural right to follow his inclinations; but, as 
society is a collection of individuals, every man's liberty 
is limited by the liberties of other men. The thought 
I wish to impress here is that the theory that morality 
is founded on narrow restrictions or regulations is ficti- 
tious. Ordinarily, where there is the most personal 
liberty to follow natural desires, there will be the most 
morality. 

In the first place, all restraint, except of crime, is 
founded in a meddlesome, tyrannous spirit, that causes 
more immorality than the natural desires men attempt to 
control. Unnecessary prohibitions always create hypoc- 
risy and excesses, and tend to call attention to one vice, 
to the neglect of habits which make men more unhappy. 
The fanatic would like to regulate the food and drink 
and pleasures of other people, and overlooks his own 
immorality. 

" Compound for sins he is inclined to 
By damning those he has no mind to." 

Human nature will always assert itself, and nothing so 
tends to immorality as the attempt to force upon men 
unnecessary conventional restraints. Shut up the child 



MORALITY. 221 

from a natural, healthful amusement at home, and he is 
likely to steal out of some back door to gamble with 
dangerous companions. Allow the girl no freedom of 
choice, and she becomes deceitful, and is more likely to 
fall into secret temptations. The Church has long con- 
demned the theatre, indiscriminately. All the time, 
many of her ministers have visited it in secret when 
away from home. Now, the real immorality is in the 
secrecy, and not necessarily in the theatre. The real 
harm has come from not drawing rational distinctions 
between the pure and the impure. To live without 
amusement m our intense life is impossible : to try to 
do so is dangerous. The boy who is forbidden to see a 
Barrett or a Booth or a Jefferson goes to some low 
place of amusement that is really dangerous to his mor- 
als. Everybody loves the drama, and a certain amount 
of excitement. In lieu of that which is legitimate, the 
church people find the dramatic in a church quarrel, 
and let off the extra nervous force in some gossip at a 
neighbor's. Men and women will not live in strait- 
jackets. A true moralist, therefore, does not attempt to 
damn up the fountain of life, lest there should be some 
dangerous overflow, but only seeks to use the intellect 
in finding out the proper channel, and guiding the pas- 
sions and impulses through it. 

III. Certain popular ideas in regard to morals may be 
noticed under the head of what is broadly called the 
intuitional theory. It is not easy to give a concise defi- 
nition of the intuitional theory of morals, as those who 
accept the theory which goes by that name differ in 
many particulars. Those, however, are called intuition- 
alists who, differing from the evolutionist, hold that the 



I III. GOSPEL <>K LAW. 



feelings of right and wrong in men are divinely ami 
directly given, that men intuitively discern right and 
wrong, that there is some transcendental goodm— 
above utility, some moral law above what can be dis- 
covered by experience. It is sometimes declared that 
goodness is something that "neither has nor can have 
any utility," and that goodness is to be chosen for its 
own sake. Again, we are told a man can know that 
certain things are right whether they can be scienti- 
fically proved so or not, that moral conduct does not 
necessarily tend to happiness, that there is a blessed- 
ness above hapiDiness, and that it is selfish to make hap- 
piness a motive. I shall not take up negatively in detail 
this theory, but its truth or error will naturally be con- 
sidered in a positive statement of the rational theory of 
morals. 

In stating what I believe to be the rational scientific 
theory of morals, I shall be brief, first from lack of time, 
and also because 1 have already incidentally suggested 
its principles. Morality is the science of good conduct 
among men. Anything is good which fulfils the end of 
its existence. We have no method of discovering what 
is good conduct in men but by studying the nature of 
man. A rose is good when it lives out the nature of the 
rose, a man is good when he lives out the nature of 
a man. The only standard of morality, therefore, is 
human life. Whatever tends to make men live in the 
largest, deepest sense is moral: whatever tends to de- 
stroy life is immoral. In common language, therefore, 
such conduct as tends to happiness and life is moral. 
The race could not exist if it did not seek happiness 
rather than pain, because pain, if in excess of happiness, 



MORALITY. 223 

would at last destroy life, and, therefore, men and mo- 
rality. The intuitionalist sometimes says that there is 
something more blessed than happiness, but would he 
say that it is blessed to be forever unhappy? When 
he talks of a transcendental moral law in obedience to 
which he will be blessed, does he not expect happiness 
sometime, somewhere ? Is it any the less happiness he 
seeks because he may perchance hope to attain it after 
death ? But it is sometimes said that a man ought to 
seek goodness for its own sake. That sounds well, but 
unfortunately it does not mean anything. A thing is 
not good, unless it sometime results in good. A thing 
is good in the human, moral sense, when it tends to 
create life. It is objected, of course, that this theory is 
coarse and selfish; but the objection is founded on a 
superficial interpretation of life and happiness. Life 
does not consist merely in duration, but in depth. 
Happiness does not consist in becoming sensual, as some 
people seem to imagine, but in satisfying all the human 
nature. Human life is deep and complex; and true 
morality is such conduct as tends to make a man live 
deej) as well as long. Happiness includes the future as 
well as the moment. According to the rational theory 
of morals, a man must not only seek long, physical life 
and his own existence, but his whole manly life and the 
happiness of others. Man's nature is large and complex. 
It is immoral for him to satisfy a part of his nature in 
such a way as to destroy his whole manhood or his own 
future happiness. Self-denial is necessary sometimes, 
not because suffering is any more holy than pleasure, 
but because by restraining our appetites and passions 
we bring ourselves more happiness at the last. Man is 



224 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 



an animal, but lie is something more : he has mind, he 
has affection, he has aspiration. He may become so 
absorbed, too, in good objects as to forget that happi- 
ness or life are ultimate motives. It is, therefore, moral 
for him to so control his lower nature as to satisfy and 
develop all his higher nature, all that makes him su- 
premely man. 

Morality relates to such conduct as tends to human 
happiness. Man, however, is a social being; and a large 
part of his own happiness comes by his association with 
others. He cannot therefore be truly happy or truly 
moral, unless he so acts as to insure the happiness of 
others. A man, therefore, will in the end often gain 
more happiness by denying himself, in order to add to 
the joy of other lives. So, in modern cultivated society, 
men talk truly about the pleasure they do themselves in 
serving others. The weakness of the intuitional theory 
is that it leaves out facts. Morality is not entirely 
founded on a feeling of right or wrong. That is well 
enough as far as it goes, but it does not contain all of 
the truth. There is an emotional and an intellectual 
side to morality. Man has a feeling of " ought " and 
"ought not," but that feeling is not enough. Men did 
not discover that murder is wrong by intuition. In the 
past, men with just as strong feelings have felt that 
murder and theft were right because they pleased the 
gods. The feeling of ought is right as far as it goes, 
but it must be guided by the intellect in order that a 
man may know what he ought and ought not to do. 
Moreover, the feeling is not the voice of God in the 
soul. Away back on the verge of animalism, men began 
to feel that certain things were right because they caused 



MORALITY. 225 

pleasure, or wrong because they caused pain. Those 
feelings have caused certain nervous organizations and 
so-called moral intuitions in the race, and our conscience 
is but the result of certain accumulated experiences in- 
herited from the past. We have inherited a nature 
which easily suggests that something is right and some- 
thing else wrong. 

But it is sometimes asserted that such a morality 
has no basis but the dictum of human whims. Blind 
Necessity is thus on the throne of the universe, and 
" Necessity has no law." But proverbs are never safe. 
The necessity of the universe is simply that everything 
works by a regular law; in other words, that certain 
natural causes always produce certain effects, which are 
neither changed by whims nor discovered by intuition. 
Moreover, the moral authority of the universe does not 
necessarily depend on a person. The authority of 
eternal facts and forces is just as powerful as the au- 
thority of a personal god. Authority is felt when we 
are conscious of something we cannot resist, no matter 
what we call it. There is, therefore, just this much re- 
ligion at the centre of all morality : that the thoughtful, 
moral man is conscious of a power working everywhere 
through natural laws, to which he loyally submits, and 
which he cannot resist, except at his peril. But that in 
common language simply means that morality is conduct 
in consistency with the laws of the universe. Happiness 
and life are therefore the motives and standards of mo- 
rality, and experience and observation the means by 
which moral laws are discovered. 

In conclusion, I can only suggest methods to be used 
for the development of morality. 



226 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

1. Men can be only absolutely moral when they have 
a moral nature, a nature or organism capable of obeying 
natural laws. The Church of tradition believes in the 
invincible power of texts and theologies: the natural 
moralist believes in heredity, in the value of a good 
organism, in blood and nerve-cells and a good natural 
mental power. Some men are born even now with a 
tendency toward morality. They have inherited from 
ancestors such an organism that they can easily follow 
natural laws. Men cannot be absolutely moral while the 
majority are born with diseased organisms and with 
vicious tendencies hidden away in their nerve-cells. 
We must do the best we can in our age, although we 
know some men cannot follow now the absolute moral 
law. We will teach men to improve on their natural 
condition. We will restrain criminals who are danger- 
ous, and protect society in its rights. We will try to 
have men now living improve, and leave a better organ- 
ism to the next generation. We will seek by study and 
careful training to leave our children better than our- 
selves. We will seek to aid the future by transmitting 
a life-force in men and women that shall make it easier 
for them to follow absolute morality than for the men 
of this generation. 

2. Morality will be advanced, as men learn to use their 
intellect. There is such a thing as conscience, but con- 
science is not infallible. It is not the voice of God in 
the soul. While it suggests that there is a right and a 
wrong, it does not tell what they are. There are certain 
natural and fundamental reasons why certain conduct is 
right and other conduct wrong, and the intellect alone 
shows what those reasons are. In order that there may 



MORALITY. 227 

be morality, it is necessary therefore that men should 
become intelligent, until they can see how things are 
and why they are, and found their conduct upon proved 
facts. No sentiment, however beautiful, is enough. 
There must be the use of the intellect, or science, in 
order to show at any time or place what conduct is 
the best expression of the sentiments of love and justice. 

3. We will use all the knowledge of the world in our 
effort to teach men morals. There are multitudes of 
men who may be benefited by the authority of great 
names. Youth and children, too, may be helped by the 
precepts of wise men. We will therefore be glad to 
quote from all the best literature of the world that ex- 
presses natural moral laws. Here, we have a decided 
advantage over the Church of the past. The Church is 
literally bound to accept all the moral teachings of a 
book that, in our age, is proved in some respects to up- 
hold cruelty, physical force, and tyranny. But we are 
not so limited. We are glad to use such Bible passages 
as teach truth on moral questions, but we do not stop 
here. We can quote from the best literature of all ages 
and religions. We find precepts in regard to kindness 
to men and beasts and birds as valuable in the teachings 
of Confucius and in the Book of Rewards and Punish- 
ments of Taouism as in the Bible. There are hundreds 
of books better than the Old Testament. The heroes of 
Plutarch are better than the heroes of Hebrew history. 
The teachings of Marcus Aurelius are better than those 
of David or the writer of the Proverbs. 

We will therefore cull from the best literature of all 
the ages, from Emerson and Lowell as well as David and 
Paul, from Mrs. Browning rather than from Deborah 



228 THE G08PEL OF LAW. 

with her cruel war song, from science rather than from 
tradition. Wherever we find anything that expresses 
the natural moral law, we will gladly use it for ourselves 
and our children. The morality of the liberal faith is 
expressed to-day in the best writings of philosophers 
and scientists and historians. We may hope that before 
many years we will have collected and edited in a popu- 
lar form the best moral teachings of the wisest men, in 
order that they may be taught more directly. In the 
mean time let us take courage in the thought that moral- 
ity lies deeper than all books, and that, whenever we 
give a child a healthful organism or teach any one to ob- 
serve and obey the fundamental laws of body and mind 
or inspire others with a love of reality, we are helping 
to form the morality of the future. 



JESUS. 

Any one who attempts to define the teachings and 
character of Jesus in one discourse is liable to do him- 
self injustice, because there is little time for details, no 
sufficient opportunity to properly balance one truth with 
another in order to make an harmonious picture, and 
because poetry and emotion must be made subservient 
to truth. During the last fifty years, a whole library has 
been created upon this subject. As an example of what 
men think necessary in order to express themselves prop- 
erly, I need only refer to one of the latest works, Jesus 
of Nazara, by Keim, which in its translated form con- 
sists of five large volumes. Surely, such a writer did 
not write so much for nothing. The most we can expect 
to do to-day is to discover the most fundamental facts in 
regard to the person of Jesus, his rank in the scale of 
being, his principal idea and purpose, and the quality of 
his character, leaving each one to combine results into 
an harmonious whole. We may, however, form some 
opinion of our own to-day, with the assurance that we 
have facts enough to find relative truth on this question, 
even if those who come after us may have more perfec- 
tion in details. 

There is just this much comfort, too, for any honest, 
intelligent man, — that, in an important sense, specialists 
need know no more about Jesus than himself. After 



230 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

knowing the value of our sources of information, any 
thoughtful, intelligent man or woman is just as likely to 
form a correct estimate of the real Jesus as the most 
learned theological recluse. Indeed, one of the very 
best books written on this subject during this century — 
The Jesus of History — was written by a layman. The 
theological bias of many writers seems to make it impos- 
sible for them to form a rational conclusion, even when 
they have the facts in their possession. 

The only object we ought to have in considering this 
subject is the discovery of the truth. In order to dis- 
cover truth, we must examine and weigh facts. Men 
often say that, in studying the life of Jesus, we must be 
careful, because he was either God or was a supernatural 
man. But how do they know? The only real way we 
can decide that question is simply to weigh evidence. 
If men have examined the facts and then have formed 
some rational conclusion, their opinions are valuable; 
but prejudices in advance of investigation are of no 
manner of consequence. 

The subject of our study is the Jesus of history. 
There are perhaps few men living to-day who deny that 
about nineteen hundred years ago there lived in Judea 
a man who, for some reason, has profoundly influenced 
civilization. There have been doubters in the past who 
denied that such a person ever lived; but few, if any, 
intelligent men to-day reject the proof that he once 
existed. On the other hand, the most intelligent men 
know the difficulty in finding out the exact facts about 
his teachings and life. There is of course a Christ of 
dogma in the Church, who it is assumed is a complete 
character, with a supposed basis of fact in history, but it 



jesus. 231 

is at least probable that this Christ is largely a creation 
of the imagination. The Christ of the Church is largely 
an idealized character, into which men have put their 
own consciousness and dogmas, without even stopping 
to consider whether such a person actually lived or not. 
Indeed, theologians tell us that Christ exists in the con- 
sciousness of the Church ; but, as that consciousness has 
been continually changing, his character is largely a cre- 
ation of their own. We are forced, then, to go to the 
most reliable sources of information to find out the his- 
torical Jesus. 

What, then, can we know about him? We would 
naturally look to the writings of contemporary Jews to 
see what they say concerning such a person. But we 
find that there is almost no reference to Jesus by the 
great Jewish writers. Philo lived during the days of 
Jesus, and was an illustrious writer, but has not a word 
to say about him. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, 
was born a few years after the death of Jesus ; and yet 
he only refers in the most incidental way to any such 
person. There is one famous passage in later editions of 
Josephus which contains a favorable notice of Jesus ; but 
the Fathers knew nothing about it, and it is considered 
by scholars to be an interpolation made by the Christian 
writers afterward, in order to create evidence for Jesus. 
If for no other reason, Josephus could not have written 
it, because it refers to Jesus as the Christ or Messiah ; 
and, if Josephus had so written, he would have become 
a Christian, as a Jew would not have rejected one he 
acknowledged as the real Christ. He does, however, 
speak of James, " the brother of Jesus called the Christ," 
in a passage which is quite generally accepted. A cen- 



232 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

tury or more after Jesus there are references to him by- 
Jewish writers, but of such a kind as only to be sugges- 
tive of enmity, and to be injurious to his reputation, if 
true. This obscure passage of Josephus is all we have 
from contemporary Jewish writers concerning one who 
men now suppose immediately revolutionized society. 
When we come to Pagan writers, we find more distinct 
recognition. Tacitus and Suetonius in the first century, 
and the younger Pliny, 104 A.D., refer to Christ and the 
Christians, but only briefly and in an incidental manner. 
The Christian Fathers give no essential facts concerning 
Jesus which are not in the New Testament. There wire 
of course a large number of writings which were after- 
ward called apocryphal. Among these were writings 
concerning the infancy and boyhood of Jesus, such as 
the Gospel of " Mary " and the " Protevangelion " and 
u Infancy." Many of these writings are exceedingly in- 
teresting, as they show the curious ideas of the age after 
Jesus, and also the origin of many Roman Catholic tra- 
ditions. In the Infancy of Jesus, w r e read, the same as in 
Justin Martyr, that Jesus was born in a cave ; also, that- 
even in his childhood he was a wonder to his playmates. 
The water in which he bathed was lent to sick people by 
his mother in order to cure them of leprosy and other 
diseases. The remedy, it is needless to say, was always 
efficacious. When a small boy, he was placed on the 
back of a mule, and that animal was changed into a man 
forthwith. He made some birds out of mud, and at his 
command they flew r away. A boy jostled against him 
once, and was immediately killed. These are of course 
only apocryphal stories, but it is difficult to see that they 
are any more absurd than those in Luke about the birth 



jesus. 233 

of Jesus. It is a larger story which is found in the Gos- 
pel of Hebrews, that Jesus did not even have a human 
mother, but that the Holy Spirit was his mother; the 
class, however, is the same. 

Our best authority, therefore, is the New Testament. 
But here, too, we must estimate the value of our infor- 
mation. Admitting that the Apocalypse and Jude were 
written by men who saw Jesus, they contain no histori- 
cal facts in regard to his life. Aside from them, no book 
of the New Testament was written by an eye-witness of 
Jesus of Nazareth. Admitting ten of the Epistles of 
Paul as genuine, there is no evidence that Paul ever saw 
Jesus. He accepted and preached a Christ, but he gives 
no information concerning the real Jesus, and his Christ 
is an idealized person essentially different from the his- 
torical character of the Synoptics. Nothing is better 
established by modern scholarship than that the Fourth 
Gospel was not written by an apostle, and did not appear 
until the second century. Even Matthew Arnold, who 
claims that it contains some of the words of Jesus, ac- 
knowledges that it has been combined and edited by an 
unknown compiler, and that in its present form we do 
not find the correct life or statements of Jesus. But 
until some one is infallibly inspired to tell just what is 
the work of the editor and what the original material, 
it cannot be accepted as history. Our best authority, 
therefore, is the Synoptic Gospels. But neither of these 
Gospels in its present form was known in the first 
century or was written by an eye-witness. They do 
however show that their writers have quoted from some 
original tradition. That tradition, therefore, is our best 
source of information in regard to Jesus. We have 



234 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

enough, then, to show that there did exist in history- 
Jesus of Nazareth ; and we have found our best author- 
ity as to his character and life and teachings. 

In regard to the birth and parentage of Jesus, we are 
left largely to conjecture. As Mark does not contain 
any reference to the miraculous birth, it was not a part 
of the original tradition. The stories in Matthew and 
Luke nullify themselves by their contradictions, even if 
they were not intrinsically absurd and immoral in their 
tendencies. We are informed that Jesus had no earthly 
father. But writers afterward wanted to show that 
Jesus was the Messiah, because he was a descendant of 
David ; so they manufactured a genealogy, tracing his 
descent down from David through Joseph, the author of 
Luke naively remarking, " (as was supposed) the son of 
Joseph." But, if Joseph were not his father, it is difficult 
to see what advantage there is in showing that Joseph 
was a descendant of David. The early apocryphal and 
Jewish writings are full of the most unfortunate stories 
in regard to the parentage of Jesus, and the stories in 
Matthew and Luke only help to give them support. 
The sooner, therefore, these stories are relegated to the 
realm of myth, the better for an ideal picture of Jesus. 
The fact is that there is no reliable account in regard to 
the parentage of Jesus, but the best of the early tradi- 
tions speak of him as the natural son of Joseph and 
Mary. 

The legend of the star has done duty essentially for 
the founders of other religions, and was created after- 
ward by some writer to fit into the expression in Gene- 
sis about the " star " which should " arise in Jacob." 
The apocryphal writings have more wonderful accounts 



jesus. 235 

of a star and a light that appeared to Mary in the cave. 
There is an embarrassment of riches concerning the vis- 
itors of the infant child. One writer tells us of the 
magi and another of the shepherds. Strange is it that 
the writer of Luke should give no account of the first, 
and that the writer of Matthew should tell us nothing 
of the shepherds, and stranger still that no other New 
Testament writer speaks of either. 

The best evidence shows that he was born in Naza- 
reth of Galilee. All the indirect evidence of the New 
Testament is in that direction. The details of the birth 
in Bethlehem are only found in Luke, where he says that 
Joseph and Mary went up to pay the tax imposed by 
Quirinius. But this taxation did not take place till 
about ten years afterward, the taxation would only be 
made at the home in Nazareth, and a woman would not 
accompany her husband on such a journey. The story 
was manufactured, like many others, to agree with the 
Old Testament. A prophet had declared that a king 
should be born in Bethlehem, and so an after- writer 
must make it appear that Jesus was born there ; while 
another prophet had declared that " he shall be called a 
Nazarene," and so Nazareth must also be the place of 
his birth. The story of the flight into Egypt was also 
formed from a prophecy which declared that " out of 
Egypt have I called my son " ; and the story of Herod 
sitting down with the learned men to study prophecy, 
and then slaying all the babes of Bethlehem, grew in 
a similar manner. 

The time of the birth of Jesus is discovered by con- 
sidering the time of the reign of Herod the Great, under 
whom Jesus was born, according to tradition. He was 



236 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

born from three to eight years before our era, and our 
time is not reckoned literally from his birth. Our reck- 
oning of time from the supposed annunciation and con- 
ception of Jesus only dates back to Dionysius the Leas, 
about 550 A.D. Many in the second century fixed the 
birth of Jesus in the month of May, others recognized 
January; and June and April and the 19th of November 
all had their supporters. The 25th of December, which 
among the heathen was a day kept in honor of the sun 
and Mithra's day, and among the Romans was about the 
time for their Saturnalia, was at last arbitrarily fixed 
upon as the birthday of Jesus, but not till the fn'th 
century. 

So little, if anything, that is reliable is known about 
Jesus until his first public appearance at the baptism of 
John the Baptist at Jordan, that we can spend no time 
over the early portion of his life. We must therefore 
confine ourselves to his public life. 

Let us now concentrate our attention upon some of 
the most vital questions. 

I. Of what order of being was Jesus? Was he God 
or demi-god or man? What was his rank? We have 
already seen that there is no evidence that even the early 
Church believed in his supernatural birth. The legend 
in Luke grew up long after his death, and was no part of 
the original tradition. For the same reason, and because 
of contradictions in the accounts, because there is no 
evidence from eye-witnesses, and because of its inherent 
absurdity, there is no truth in the story of the resurrec- 
tion. We see next that in the Synoptic Gospels Jesus 
is simply a man. We could not of course believe any- 
thing merely because it was in an ancient tradition, but 



jesus. 237 

it is of significance that in our best records of the real 
Jesus he was simply a Jew, born of human parents, and 
had brothers and sisters. Even the report of the mira- 
cles is no proof of a contradictory belief. It was 
thought to be no strange thing that a man should per- 
form miracles; and miracles were believed to be genuine, 
even when performed by heathen and unbelievers. 
There is good evidence that those who received Jesus 
did so because of his supposed power to heal sick people 
and because of his teachings. There is no good evi- 
dence that until near the close of his life even the disci- 
ples thought he was the Messiah. Many of the isolated 
expressions in the Gospels were undoubtedly of a later 
date than the time of Jesus, and were put into the 
records after the idea that he was the Christ became a 
distinct theory, in order to give it support. 

But even a belief that Jesus was the Messiah did not 
imply a belief that he was more than man. The belief 
in a Messiah to come had long been held by the He- 
brews in some form. This belief moreover assumed a 
variety of forms according to the circumstances. After 
the separation and dispersion of the twelve tribes, there 
grew up a belief that a descendant of David should at 
last again set up that great monarch's throne. Repeated 
disappointments, however, changed the details of this 
belief. Sometimes, it did not centre around a single 
person at all, but pointed to "Israel," the "elect ser- 
vant" or chosen people of God. About the time of 
Jesus there was a general belief all over the East that- 
some great deliverer should appear. But the Jews did 
not generally believe that this Messiah was to be Jahveh 
himself, but only that he should come by the power of 



238 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

Jahveh. The idea of an Angel-Messiah is not found in 
any Hebrew writings which were written before the 
Babylonian captivity, and not in the Synoptic Gospels. 
But we will not dwell here, because the Jews, as a class, 
did not receive Jesus as their Messiah ; and we are forced 
simply to look at obtainable historical facts. The early 
Christian Church expected Jesus to come back in the 
clouds and reign as Messiah. As he never came back, 
men afterward began to spiritualize old prophecies and 
put new meaning into Christian Scriptures, in order to 
make Jewish and Christian teachings agree, and in order 
to prove that, nevertheless, Jesus was some kind of a 
Messiah. 

The belief in the deity or semi-deity of Jesus grew, 
however, from a different source. In general, it may be 
said that, after his death, time and tradition, and the de- 
sire to make him seem as great as possible, would grad- 
ually turn him into a kind of supernatural being. This 
has been the method in the case of all great religious 
teachers. But there is a special source of the deity of 
Jesus. Even Paul was influenced to some extent by the 
Alexandrian and Persian philosophy. Under Persian 
and Grecian influence there grew up a belief in a king- 
dom of good and evil spirits and in a "Logos," an ema- 
nation from pure Deity. Philosophically, the first cause 
of the theory that Jesus was a supernatural being or 
Logos was not because of a belief in his essential per- 
fection, but in order to keep God perfect. God was 
considered too pure to come in contact with matter and 
make worlds, and so the "Logos" was his agent "by 
whom the worlds were created." The growth of a 
metaphysical dogma in regard to Jesus begins, in the 



jesus. 239 

order of time, with the writings of Paul. The Christ 
of Paul is not the Jewish man of the Synoptic Gospels. 
I do not say that Paul did not use for the basis of his 
teachings the Jesus of history. He does recognize such 
a person, but he does not receive his conceptions of 
Christ from the disciples. He says he conferred not 
with flesh and blood : he never had much intercourse 
with the disciples, he gives no proof that he ever saw 
Jesus in any natural sense, or that he ever read any 
records of those who did see him, but after his conver- 
sion he went away alone for three years, and then he 
began to preach what he had "received" during his own 
meditations. Paul does not take up literally the Oriental 
philosophies, but he does show that he was influenced 
by them. In his writings, if we accept ten Epistles as 
genuine, we have the first reference to Jesus as a pre- 
existent being or the maker of the worlds. There is not 
a hint in the first three Gospels of any pre-existence of 
Jesus, but Paul constructs a different Christ, who is first 
a heaven-sent man, then a Lord in the image of God and 
the reflection of God's glory, and then he by whom the 
worlds were made and humanity was to be redeemed. 
Paul, too, was the real founder of historical Christianity 
with its dogmas and organizations, and not the natural 
Jesus of Xazareth who had neither a formal philosophy 
nor a church separate from Judaism. Even Paul does 
not turn Jesus into God; but he does place him in a 
rank beside him, far above all other principalities and 
angels and spiritual powers. 

The next important step in this development is shown 
in the Fourth Gospel. Here, a writer of the second 
century boldly takes up the Xeo-Platonic ' ; Logos" and 



240 TIIE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

affirms it to be the historical Jesus. "The 'Logos' was 
made flesh and dwelt among us." Nothing is better 
proved than that the Fourth Gospel was not written till 
after the first century. Nothing is plainer than that the 
writer has taken up *be philosophy of the Alexandrian 
Philo, who did live in the first century, and applied it 
to Jesus. No one charges the writer with intentional 
wrong. His motive was of the best quality for his age. 
He wished to raise Jesus from narrow Judaism and 
make him an exalted Saviour for all men, a purely intel- 
lectual and spiritual being rather than a Galilean peas- 
ant. He leaves out all the crude, coarse conceptions of 
the earlier traditions : his Jesus, he writes with a master 
stroke, "was made flesh," and does everything grandly, 
and spends the last hours before his death uttering phi- 
losophy in long labored sentences. Some of the earlier 
writers, after the death of Jesus, prophesy the return 
of the Messiah ; but he never returns, and so this phil- 
osophic writer turns him into a Lamb of God who is to 
take away the sins of the world, and makes it appear that 
his death was for sinners. 

We cannot follow in detail the gradual development 
of this idea through the first three centuries. There 
was, however, a gradual growth of dogma. Some sects 
argued that Christ had two separate wills, some that the 
Christ never died, but that it was only Jesus who died. 
Then there were those who claimed that Jesus was not 
real flesh and blood, but only a phantasm. Gradually, 
however, the idea grew that Jesus was God. The name 
"Trinity," however, was never used in our modern sense 
by any writer till Tertullian about 200 A.D., and even 
then did not come into general use. The climax of this 



jesus. 241 

dogma creation came under Constantine the Emperor. 
Arius denied that Christ was eternally begotten. He 
was charged with heresy, and the Emperor called the 
council of IJice 325 A.D. to settle the matter. No po- 
litical convention was ever managed with more craft 
than this grand council of the leaders of the Church, 
where for the first time Jesus was declared God. After 
great controversy, it was finally decided that Jesus was 
of one substance with the Father. After this, it became 
heresy not to declare that Jesus was very God of very 
God. We need spend little time' in summing up this 
point. No matter who declared a man to be God, we 
would be forced to reject the claim in the interests of 
truth and the human reason. But we do not even need 
to go back thus to first principles. The best records we 
have are those of The Triple Tradition of the Synoptic 
Gospels; and in this Jesus is never anything else than 
a man, never claims to be anything else, refuses even 
to be called "good," and says, "None is good save one, 
God," and declares that "the Lord our God is one 
Lord." Jesus, therefore, ranks simply as a man. We 
need only stop here long enough to take in the full 
significance of that fact before considering our next 
question. It will be of little use to try to urge this 
conclusion upon those who neither care for facts nor 
history. But it ought to be of some importance to 
those who, in theory at least, accept this conclusion. 
If Jesus is a man, he must be judged as other men. 
We have no moral nor logical right to say that he was 
simply a man, and then go on assuming that he was 
something else. The reason we have a feeling that he 
is, somehow, to be considered different from other men 



242 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

is simply because we have inherited feelings that have 
grown out of a theory that he was a god. All the theo- 
ries concerning his supernatural mission and mediatorial 
work grew out of the same false assumptions with the 
dogma of his deity or pre-existence. If he was only a 
man then, we must start new from that basis, and form 
our judgments accordingly. 

II. We must next consider his teachings. Did he 
bring a new and special revelation of truth to men, and 
were his teachings perfect? In answering this question, 
we may leave out, in fairness to Jesus, all the drapery of 
miracles, as the deliberate work of others, and take up 
vital religious and moral teachings. When we examine 
his religious teachings, we do not discover anything 
absolutely new. That he took up some old conceptions 
and gave them a new shape and filled them with vitality 
is an undoubted fact. But he did not introduce a new 
religion. He always adhered in substance to the Jewish 
ideas, although he developed those ideas and filled them 
with a new spirit. He did not make the idea of the 
fatherhood of God, as God had been called a father 
before by some of the prophets, and even by men of 
other religions thousands of years before. He did not 
bring a new doctrine of immortality, because there is no 
evidence to show that he ever taught the doctrine of 
immortality in our modern sense. Nothing is more evi- 
dent than that Jesus came to believe that he was the 
Messiah. It is not necessary for us to decide just when 
there began in him the Messianic consciousness. There 
was nothing strange in his belief that he was the Mes- 
siah. Not only the Jews, but even other Eastern people 
were looking for a Messiah to come and set up a glori- 



jesus. 243 

ous kingdom on earth, and many other men had already 
believed that they were Messiahs. Undoubtedly, the 
idea grew and developed in the mind of Jesus, until it 
became his prominent thought. But because of that 
Messianic belief he never taught anything directly about 
a life after death. His mind was turned in another 
direction. His "kingdom of heaven" was a kingdom on 
the earth during that age. Whatever else it was too, 
it was to be a material kingdom in which the saints 
should rule. His kingdom of heaven was to fulfil in an 
important sense the old idea of the " kingdom of God," 
a kingdom on earth where the Father would manifest 
his power. Jesus believed until near the close of his life 
that he would set up that kingdom ; and, when- at last 
he saw that he would perhaps die before he succeeded, 
he, and his followers after his death, believed that he 
would come back again. Of course, he expected to be 
with God in a certain sense after his death ; but he gives 
no clear ideas on that subject, and his future "kingdom 
of heaven " meant the kingdom that was at last to be 
on earth. So far as he speaks of God's fiery wrath 
and indignation against sinners, it was with reference 
specially to the enemies of the Messiah and the "king- 
dom of heaven" on earth, who would go clown in the 
triumph of the saints. That there may be indirect ref- 
erence to a future immortality in the teachings of Jesus 
may be admitted, but they are only incidental to his 
Messianic idea of a future on earth. He drew no fine 
distinctions in regard to that life. Jesus undoubtedly 
received many of his ideas from the Book of Daniel; 
and, after he thought he might die before he succeeded 
in setting up his Messianic kingdom, he believed he was 



244 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

to come back in the clouds, and therefore any reference 
he makes to a future life with the Father is only to a 
future that is incidental to the final return and accom- 
plishment of his desire on earth. But such ideas as 
Jesus may have had incidentally in regard to what we 
call a future life were not original with him. The Jews 
did not agree in regard to the life after death. Such 
ideas as they had on that subject were received from 
Persia, where, also, they received their legend of the 
creation. But the clearest ideas that can be found in 
regard to what we call immortality are in the Apoc- 
ryphal book, — The Wisdom of Solomon. Even the 
so-called Lord's Prayer is not absolutely original, but is 
a compilation of Jewish phrases, all but the doxology, 
which was an interpolation of the Christian Church. 

In regard to morality there is no evidence that Jesus 
ever intended to establish a perfect moral code, al- 
though, of course, he gave isolated moral precepts. 
But there was absolutely nothing new in his morality. 
I need not speak here at length of the fact that Gau- 
tama Buddha said, " Forgive insults, reward not evil for 
evil," and that Confucius said, "What I do not wish 
men to do to me I also wish not to do to them." There 
is no positive proof that Jesus ever received anything 
directly from those teachers, although indirectly all the 
great Oriental religions had affected Judaism. But 
there is proof that he received the substance of his 
moral teachings from the Jews. Not only was his mo- 
rality the result of the teachings of the rabbis and per- 
haps of the Essenes, but, even largely, of a single rabbi. 
When Jesus was a child there was one leader of the 
Pharisees, Rabbi Hillel, who taught some of the most 



jesus. 245 

beautiful precepts. There, is perhaps no proof for Re- 
ii an's assumption that Hillel was the real teacher of 
Jesus; but Jesus was undoubtedly familiar with the 
Rabbi's teachings. Among other things, Hillel said, 
"Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place." 
When a man asked him to tell him the whole law in the 
time a man could stand on one leg, he said : " Good, my 
son: what is unpleasing to thee, do not to thy friend. 
This is the whole law: the rest is only application," 
which is the substance of the Golden Rule. He also 
taught the fear of God and the love of one's neighbor. 
We will look in vain to find anything absolutely new 
either on morals or religion in the teachings of Jesus. 
What he did was to take up old teachings and fill them 
with a new spirit and meaning, to show that beneath 
the law was to be a central principle of love. Where 
others talked of the nearness of God and his fatherhood, 
he felt them to be realities, and imparted his conscious- 
ness and enthusiasm to others. In a technical sense, he 
did not introduce a new religion ; but he was himself a 
flower of the long development of his race. But he 
was a rare religious genius, he had a real devout faith 
in his divine Father, he was conscious of a deep inner 
life, he put into all old faiths a new spirit and meaning. 
It takes more than an acceptance of old dogmas to make 
a leader and inspirer of men. He took up the teachings 
he had inherited, and filled them with spirit and life, and 
placed a principle beneath their outward form, which 
gave them a new vitality. Among the hills of Galilee, 
he pondered long and deeply over the problems of evil 
and man and God ; and, although he brought to men no 
new code, he did bring an inspiration out of his own per- 



216 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

sonal character and meditations. The elemei ts he added 
to what he inherited were his own personal, religious 
insight and enthusiasm, and faith and intensity and sin- 
cerity. It is not that man — any man — is an isolated 
being, born independently of all that has preceded him, 
but man may be himself a new creator of moral and re- 
ligious power; and Jesus was one of those few men 
whose intense moral insight and earnestness and whose 
personal power make them practically the creators of a 
new moral force in their age. 

In considering whether or not his teachings were 
perfect, we must make careful distinctions. On religious 
questions, we may confess that in essence Jesus had 
an exalted conception, although accepting many of the 
false ideas of his day. One petition of the Lord's 
Prayer shows that he believed in an evil one. There 
is no doubt whatever, if we are to accept the records, 
that, like the Pharisees, he believed in a mysterious 
world of demons and tormenting spirits. Then, in his 
religious habits, he was very much more like the Essenes 
than like the practical Christians of our day who profess 
to believe in him. He loved retirement, believed in an 
inner communion with God in the solitudes of nature, 
never prayed publicly with his disciples, and was un- 
doubtedly what we would call a mystic. A modern 
Hindu reformer has declared that it is impossible for an 
American or Englishman, or any one but an Oriental, 
to have any true conception of the real Jesus. What 
would our modern active business men, who believe they 
believe in Jesus, and carry gilt-edged prayer-books, and 
observe forms, and call all men who are intense in their 
thought and have strong individuality fanatics, think, if 



jesus. 247 

they had before them literally the man who, according 
to all traditions, wore long flowing hair and beard, slept 
out of doors often at night, went off alone when he 
wished to commune with his Father, and told men to 
consider the lilies which neither toil nor spin ? The 
actual Jesus would not be admitted into a modern 
Christian Church, and would be avoided, if not insulted, 
in a modern Christian town. Those of us who can look 
beneath all forms and words to see the deep meaning, 
who can see as much religion to-day in a Hindu or fol- 
lower of Confucius as in a formal Occidental worship- 
per, can, however, appreciate, beneath the local and 
temporary, the grand moral earnestness and aspiration 
and manhood of the Jesus of history. Rejecting the 
Fourth Gospel as unreliable, and knowing that the last 
twelve verses in Mark, in the old version, were an in- 
terpolation, we discover that Jesus had no doctrine of 
salvation by faith, that he did not tell men they would 
be damned for a lack of belief, and that at least at the 
last of his life he wanted to set up a kingdom on earth, 
not for the sake of Jews alone, but in order to bring life 
and hope to all men. 

On moral questions, we may accept the spirit and sub- 
stance of what is called the Sermon on the Mount. 
But, if we were to believe in the infallibility of the New 
Testament, we could not accept the morality of Jesus. 
Take that single expression, " Consider the lilies of the 
field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they 
spin," and apply it literally to common life, and see how 
it would do for a moral precept. It is a glorification of 
faith over industry and activity. If it means anything, 
it means that it is better to trust than it is to toil and 



248 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

spin and gather into barns. That this is no exaggera- 
tion of the meaning of the expression is seen when we 
read the whole passage, which concludes: "Be not there- 
fore anxious for the morrow; for the morrow will be 
anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof." This command carried out literally, as it was 
by men after the age of Jesus, would stop all business, 
and lead men to go off to contemplate the beaut i 
nature. But men will not long be fed, unless somebody 
works. Birds and lilies may simply grow, but they are 
no criterion for men and women. 

Closely allied with this is also the teaching that it is 
best to leave, and even hate, wife and children and 
houses and lands for the kingdom of heaven's sake. 
If that is a genuine passage, it would not do as a 
moral precept. There is no kingdom of heaven of half 
so much importance as our legitimate family and busi- 
ness and social relations. If such a commandment were 
obeyed, it would end all social morality. Early Chris- 
tians, for some reason, placed a premium on isolated 
and selfish saintship. The monks were the ideal men 
of the Church, and marriage and commerce and patriot- 
ism were not considered Christian virtues. Everything 
was measured by a transcendental standard ; and the 
beggar and mendicant, and the wife and husband 
who left their homes for the Church, were considered 
especially holy. The family and the home life would 
never grow under such a principle as this, — the supe- 
riority of some kingdom separate from the daily life. 

If we are to believe the records too, there is a glorifi- 
cation of poverty over wealth. In one passage in Luke, 
Jesus is represented as saying, " Blessed are ye poor, for 






Jesus. 249 

yours is the kingdom of God." There is no way to twist 
this passage out of its evident meaning that men are to 
be I mply because they are poor. Now, we can 

understand how a poor man might be blessed, if his 
poverty were because of honesty or conscientious 
but there is n ising in poverty in itself. This is no 

however. In Luke again, we have a 
long parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The poor 
man is carried into Abraham's bosom, and the rich 
man is st into hell; and the only reason given is 
that the rich man had his good things in this life, while 
uus was poor. Xot one single word about any 
morality on the part of Lazarus or immorality on the 
part of the rich man, but poverty is rewarded simply 
because it is poverty. Such teachings cannot tend to 
morality. Poverty is the cause of a large amount of 
crime, of drunkenness, and despair. There is no way 
to reform society but by making men industrious and 
self-reliant. To teach men that it is better to be poor 
than to be dishonest is moral; but to teach men that 
poverty is a blessing in itself is immoral, and encour- 
begg ry and idleness. It is true that Keim and 
Strauss and other critics claim that these passages in 
Luke came into the Gospel from some Ebionite Essene 
source, and are not the real words of Jesus. If th : e ; e 
true, it is only another proof that we have no infallible 
record of the teachings of Jesus. There is no doubt, 
however, that Jesus was influenced to some extent by 
the teachings of the Essenes, although never entirely 
controlled by them. We need only look at another 
point in this connection, and that is in regard to the 
treatment of enemies. Society could not exist for a 



250 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

week, if all men were to turn the other cheek when an 
enemy struck them. There is not a man in the nine- 
teenth century, except the Quaker, who pretends to 
obey any such injunction. Our national existence de- 
pends upon the assertion of our natural rights, and the 
resistance of the attacks of enemies. Society justifies 
a man even in killing the robber or murderer who 
would enter a house to commit a crime. Righteous in- 
dignation in the presence of insult and intolerance and 
tyranny is just as grand a virtue as meekness. Not to 
dwell longer on this point, there is no perfect morality 
in the literal teachings of Jesus, if he is correctly re- 
ported. 

When we give up all belief in the literal infallibility 
of either the records or the moral teachings, however, 
and measure the Sermon on the Mount by the age in 
which it was given, we are prepared to see in it a beau- 
tiful ideal spirit. Although Jesus accepted the ideas of 
his age, and therefore his teachings cannot be regarded 
as infallible, yet he was a superior and independent 
thinker. Many of his teachings that could not be re- 
ceived as moral precepts may have had a deep meaning 
in the age in which they were uttered. For example, 
when he said to those under the Roman Government 
that even the poor might be blessed, the words may have 
been comforting to his hearers. When so many fanatics 
created insurrection, too, without accomplishing any 
good, it might be a valuable lesson to say to men that 
they had better possess their souls in patience, and not 
strike back when struck on the one cheek. It is noble, 
too, for a man to rise above all personal malice and re- 
venge, when he is insulted by the ignorant and thought- 



JE8U8. 251 

less. No matter where he obtained it, it is a broad prin- 
ciple which Jesus inculcated, when he urged men to fol- 
low the Golden Rule. On the side of ideality and senti- 
ment, the Sermon on the Mount, when freed from all 
that is local, will never probably be surpassed. But 
morality must also be approved by the intellect ; and 
therefore men in all ages must decide, after careful ob- 
servation, how that ideal and sentiment should be made 
practical. 

But one other fact must be made prominent. The 
one central idea which filled the mind of Jesus until it 
controlled him was that he was the Messiah. In order 
to discover the character of his teachings, we must know 
the prevailing motive in his Messianic consciousness. 
First, then, he accepted the prevailing idea of a tempo- 
ral and material Messianic kingdom. He undoubtedly 
knew and accepted the prevailing ideas in regard to a 
political, kingly Messiahship, which may be found in 
Daniel, Enoch, the writings of Jews of his age, which 
were uttered by John the Baptist, and heard expressed 
everywhere among the people. The theory that Jesus 
did not believe in any such a Messiahship is a direct con- 
tradiction of the teachings of the Synoptic Gospels. In 
addition to this, however, he also expected to bring in a 
reign of righteousness and peace, and this was the hope 
that was the dearest to him. The more selfish Jews 
wanted a kingdom in order to win personal favors, and 
were willing to be moral to a certain extent in order to 
succeed; but Jesus wanted to have success in order that 
the world might be blessed. Enthusiastic he was, ac- 
cording to our practical ideas, almost to fanaticism; but 
it was an enthusiasm for that which to him was a holy 



252 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

cause. He wanted at the last not only to help the Jews, 
but to help all men; and he was undoubtedly sincere 
in his belief that, if he should succeed, all men would 
be blessed. That he was not selfish in any narrow sense 
is evident from his willingness to die, if it might prove 
necessary. The real central motive of Jesus was, then, 
that he wished to be the Messiah in order that there 
might be a reign of righteousness, and by that idea we 
must measure all his teachings. In measuring them, too, 
we must separate the local and the temporary from that 
which is ideal and universal. His teachings were valu- 
able, therefore, in giving a moral impetus to men; and 
they are valuable still, so far as their ideal spirit can be 
made practical. 

III. But let us next consider his essential moral rank 
among men. What was he in his own character, and 
how does he compare with other men who have created 
epochs in history? First, then, we must answer this 
question in its literal form. In intellectual conceptions, 
he never excels either Socrates or Marcus Aurelius ; in 
his poetic exaltation, he does not surpass either Plato 
or Philo, or even Isaiah ; and his moral teachings, on the 
intellectual side, are not superior to the Stoics. It is no 
injustice to say that there are many men living to-day 
who have much more knowledge of the universe and its 
laws than he had or could have. He accepted the theo- 
ries of his a^e in regard to a little world as a centre of 
all, and knew nothing literally of our vast Cosmos, in 
which our world is but a fraction of one of millions of 
worlds. In regard to his virtues, no fair man has ever 
doubted his moral exaltation and sincerity. But other 
men have suffered just as much for their convictions, and 



jesus. 253 

have had just as deep a love for humanity. Gautama 
Buddha was so moved by love and pity for men that he 
left a luxurious home, a beautiful wife, and an only child, 
in order to help his race. Hundreds of Jews and infi- 
dels have suffered just as deeply and nobly for their con- 
victions in rejecting what the false followers of Jesus 
have tried to impose on them as the Great Crucified him- 
self. Confucius, too, had just as good a system of mor- 
als as Jesus ; and so, too, had the Romans and Greeks, on 
the intellectual side. It is often asked if at least Jesus 
is not the ideal man whom we should imitate. Every- 
thing depends upon what we mean by imitation. If we 
are to literally follow an example or to obey the dogmas 
which are to-day proclaimed about Jesus, he cannot be 
imitated by moral men of our age. Even some liberal 
interpreters declare that Jesus at Caesarea-Philippi 
made up his mind to go up to Jerusalem to die. If this 
were true, Jesus cannot be our example. Men ought to 
live up to their convictions, even if it costs them their 
life; but they have no moral right to commit suicide. 
According to Orthodoxy, it would have been a great 
wrong to humanity if the Jews had not crucified Jesus, 
because otherwise men could not have been saved. Ac- 
cording to any theory under which the Gospels in their 
present form are accepted as history, Jesus threw his life 
away on a quibble. Pilate wanted to spare Jesus, if he 
could ; but the Jews had charged him with wanting to 
set up a kingdom in opposition to the Roman govern- 
ment. Pilate, in order to give him a chance for his 
life, asked him if he was a king. According to the 
record, Jesus replied, " Thou sayest it," which to Pilate 
simply meant an affirmative answer. If he was a broad 



254 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

thinker, why did he allow himself to be handed over to 
death over a quibble of words? It would have been 
easy for him to have informed Pilate that he was not a 
king in the Roman sense. The best friends, therefore, 
of Jesus are those who reject the Gospels as infallible 
history, and deny that he wilfully threw away his life. 
We know that the disciples were disappointed when 
Jesus died. We also know that after-writers put 
words into the mouth of Jesus, in order to help their 
theories. It is much more probable, then, that after- 
writers manufactured the words in which Jesus is rep- 
resented as declaring he was going up to Jerusalem 
to die than that he deliberately committed suicide. 
Moreover, it was no part of any Messianic idea that the 
Messiah should die. The Messiah was to live and reign. 
There might be suffering and death incidentally, but it 
was not in the essential theory. How much better, then, 
to follow the natural supposition that Jesus did not go 
up to Jerusalem for the purpose of dying, but that he 
went hoping to succeed, but in such deadly earnestness 
that go he would, even if he did die. We can see some 
heroism in such a course. We can understand that he 
resolved to go up to that city with a hope that the Jews 
would after all accept him ; and that, with that idea, he 
resolved to go even at the risk of life. That would be 
noble; but to deliberately go for the purpose of dying 
would degrade him from the rank of a hero to that of a 
fanatic. That Jesus would have sad forebodings of the 
possibility of failure and death is not to be doubted; 
but that was but human, and is something different from 
deliberately throwing away his life. But we have seen 
enough to discover that there could be no safety in any 



jesus. 255 

literal imitation of Jesus. Men in the early Church con- 
cluded there was some special virtue in imitating his .sup- 
posed outward actions ; and so Ignatius pleaded with his 
friends not to try to save his life, and thus deprive him 
of the crown of martyrdom. 

The imitation of Jesus led to evil results in another 
direction. Jesus, for example, was never a married 
man, and did nothing directly for business or the home 
life or statesmanship. It may be very true, of course, 
that Jesus was so wedded to his idea and his work as to 
be able to think of nothing else. But we can also see 
that society could not exist, if men followed his exam- 
ple literally. A perfect man is a whole man, — a man 
who enters into all the multifarious relations of life, as 
a citizen of this world, a husband, a father, a friend. 
The really perfect man is he who can fill all the rela- 
tions of man in consistency with the highest law of 
that relation. Jesus did grandly perhaps to follow out 
his idea; but there would be no homes nor commerce 
nor art nor statesmanship, if all men literally imitated 
him. That has been tried once. The early believers 
thought it was not the mother in the home, but the 
virgin, who was the ideal woman; not the faithful hus- 
band, but the emaciated, callous-kneed, unmarried dev- 
otee who was particularly entitled to the kingdom of 
heaven. Jesus, however, should not be held responsible 
for all these vagaries. There is no evidence that he 
ever expected any one to imitate him. He cast high 
honor upon the home life, and honored motherhood and 
childhood, although himself homeless; and, although 
according to certain records he seemed to preach asceti- 
cism, yet the balance of evidence seems to be in favor 



256 TIIK GOSPEL OF LAW. 

of the theory that lie wished to cheer other men in their 
natural relations. 

The real power of Jesus was in his religious enthusi- 
asm, by which he set in motion the deepest currents in 
the human nature. His religious theories are not more 
intellectual than those of others; but they are more full 
of a consciousness of a divine presence and more full of 
hope, whether literally correct or not. His moral pre- 
cepts are not perfect intellectually, but they are full of 
an ideal spirit of righteousness. 

But no one has enough facts to justify him in deciding 
dogmatically who is the most perfect among the sons of 
men. There have been a few T men in all the ages who 
have lived up to their ideals, and by their genius and 
heroism have shown the value of a noble life. Jesu3 
belonged to that noble class of heroes, and he is the one 
who has specially influenced our civilization. We really 
appreciate him, not by accepting the ideas that were 
transitory and local, but by having his sincere spirit and 
living up to our highest ideals and deepest convictions. 
We are friends of Jesus, not when we accept a dogmatic 
Christianity, but when, along with him and all the moral 
heroes of all ages, we cast in our lot with that which is 
seen to be present truth and righteousness. There never 
was a greater perversion of realities than that the name 
of one of the great heroes of the ages should now be 
used as a narrow shibboleth to check investigation and 
conscientiousness and science and moral and intellectual 
improvement in the interests of formalism and dogma. 

Jesus has done his work in behalf of morals and re- 
ligion, let us now do ours in consistency with the light 
of our age. Practically, not many modern Christians 



.tf.sus. 257 

are in the least affected in morals by their belief in 
Jesus. Habit and experience and necessity settle all 
our questions of business and of daily life. Practically, 
the name of Jesus is chiefly used now to uphold dogmas 
borrowed from Pagan Rome and Egypt and Persia, and 
modified by mediaeval scholasticism. But the historical 
Jesus will be the most real to us when his name is rid of 
all superstition, and when it comes to us fresh and natu- 
ral and full of inspiration as the names of Gautama and 
Socrates and Confucius, as that of one of the moral 
heroes of the world. 

11 By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, 
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation 

learned 
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath 

burned 
Since the first man stood God-conquered, with his face to heaven 

upturned. 

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good 

uncouth ; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of 

Truth; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pilgrims 

be, 
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate 

winter sea, 
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted 

key." 



PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 

There are two general theories in regard to the 
causes of human character and destiny. One is that 
man is the creature of fate or predestination, the result 
of forces independent of himself, and becomes what he 
is in spite of, and not because of, his own efforts. The 
other philosophy is that a man's character is in his own 
hands, and that he can, at least morally, make what he 
pleases of himself. 

The tendency of men to look only at one side of a 
truth is quite evident in the treatment of this question. 
The doctrine of necessity, or that men cannot help what 
they are, is one side of a truth. By itself, however, it 
is one of the most hopeless and immoral of doctrines. 
In ordinary language, men sometimes say that, if they 
do wrong, they cannot help it, because they are only the 
creatures of uncontrollable forces, whether they call 
those forces God or appetites or circumstances or hered- 
ity. Many a villain claims immunity for himself in his 
peculiar nature or in his environments or in fate or 
divine decrees. This philosophy is all the more danger- 
ous with some men, because it contains a half-truth. 

Largely, perhaps, because of this danger, men have 
gone to another extreme, and have declared that man is 
entirely free, and that he has the moral power to do 
what is right and to make himself moral in character. 






PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 259 

Against the doctrine of divine fore-ordination in the- 
ology, the revivalist sets up the doctrine of free-will. 
He puts it in a literal form, and says that man has the 
power to believe and to choose heaven in preference to 
hell, and that God would not go through the absurd 
farce of offering men the water of life, unless it was in 
the power of the man himself to make a choice. He is 
supported in essence, if not in form, too, by many liberal 
reformers, who come with reason and philosophy, and 
say that man is the creator of his own character and 
destiny. 

But it may be that men gaze too intently on one side 
of life and human character. In our brief time, we can- 
not of course examine all causes, but we can look at facts 
enough to discover the general principle. 

With the church controversy between predestination 
and free-will, we can of course have no intellectual 
sympathy. Both of these doctrines were founded on an 
anthropomorphic theology, and both of them are unsci- 
entific and lacking in philosophical breadth. It is a 
truth, however, that, between the two systems of theol- 
ogy, Calvinism, with all its harshness, was very much 
nearer the truth than Arminianism. It was much nearer 
the truth than that new of life which maybe fitly called 
Sentimental Optimism. Of course, it is not true that 
man is under the control of a personal god who, ages 
ago, by a fatalistic decree, decided everything in a man's 
destiny. It is not true that God chose from all eternity 
some men to be pure and perfect and to win heaven, and 
passed by others, practically deciding that they should 
have such evil natures that they would be invariably bad 
and inevitably candidates for eternal punishment. There 



260 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

is no authority for the form of such a doctrine. There 
is not any such a god in the universe, there never was 
such a decree of election and reprobation, and the 
heaven and hell are purely creations of the imagination, 
as fictitious as Utopia or the fabled islands of the sea. 
But, nevertheless, the Calvinist was the best thinker the 
old Church ever had. He saw that, for some reason, the 
character and destiny of men were largely settled at 
their birth, that men were in an important sense under 
the control of powers outside of themselves, and these 
powers or this force fixed to a large degree a man's 
moral standing. His mistake was in personifying these 
powers or causes or forces, giving them an arbitrary 
human will, and then declaring that of " His own will 
begat he us." But he was right in declaring that some 
things about a man are settled independently of his will, 
because nothing is more superficial than the popular 
church doctrine of the freedom of the will. It is 
founded on the idea that a man's will is something sepa- 
rate from the man himself, that the will is self-determin- 
ing. The idea is that, although a man might naturally 
do certain things, yet he has a will separate from his 
nature, that can choose in spite of that nature. But 
man has no will separate from his nature. The will is 
merely the expression of the nature under certain mo- 
tives and conditions. If we could absolutely know a 
man's nature, then we could tell to a mathematical cer- 
tainty what he would do under certain motives and cir- 
cumstances. His conduct would no more be a matter of 
uncertainty than that, when all barriers are removed, 
water will run down hill. His will is the resultant of 
all his nature, — his appetites, his desires plus his motives 



PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 261 

and the conditions. There is no such thing as free- 
dom of will in the old theological sense. The Calvinist 
was therefore right in declaring that certain men have 
not the moral ability to be righteous. He was wrong 
in attributing to the decree of a personal god that which 
is the result of a long succession of natural causes and 
conditions. 

The sentimental optimistic theory of the nature of 
man is contrary to facts. Human nature is not all dig- 
nified, and much of it is terribly depraved. It is not 
depraved because of a sin of a woman in a garden, but 
much of it is nevertheless undignified and degraded. 
Everything is not lovely with some men, could not be 
lovely with them, and nothing could be more in opposi- 
tion to facts than the notion that it is. The reason of 
the Calvinist is wrong. Man did not fall and therefore 
become depraved; but, on the contrary, he started just 
above animalism, and much of his barbaric nature still 
inheres in him. So much of it remains in some men 
that it is simply absurd to talk about the possibilities of 
all men. Some men have a sublime character, but others 
have possibilities only a little above the brute. 

This is but a stepping-stone to the heart of our sub- 
ject, but one necessary to go over, in consequence of the 
fact that these old theories are still held by multitudes 
of men. 

Positively, it is a truth that there is a necessity in 
every man's life, and that to a large degree his charac- 
ter is fixed independently of his own efforts. We have 
come into this world bringing with us capacities and 
tendencies that were caused outside of our will and 
before our birth. There is nothing more superficial 



262 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

than the idea that a man can make anything out of him- 
self. Whether we accept certain conclusions of science 
or not, we all must confess that the causes of genius and 
morality and crime can be very fully analyzed. Even a 
little observation will show that there are a great variety 
of causes, over which a man has no control, that go to 
make up his manhood. 

Birth is a most important factor in human character. 
That one man was born with a high forehead, a clear 
eye, a symmetrical form, while another was born with a 
repulsive countenance and a humpback; that one boy 
with curly hair and sweet lips should be loved for his 
beauty, and his brother barely tolerated because of his 
repulsive appearance, — are facts entirely outside the 
limits of human choice. 

Even the surroundings of nature have much to do 
with human destiny. Buckle, in his History of Civil- 
ization, claims that food, climate, soil, and the general 
aspect of nature, are the great arbiters of destiny. It is 
the fashion with a certain class of critics, just now, to 
show the fallacy in some of Mr. Buckle's theories, and 
to draw an argument from it against modern philosophy 
and science. But no modern science or philosophy de- 
pends upon his teachings. Because some of his theories 
are disproved, too, it does not necessarily follow that 
his historical facts are of no value. One of his mistakes 
we shall notice ; but, as far as he goes, he helps to throw 
a wonderful flood of light on human history. As he 
shows, men are very largely what they are because of 
the kind of food they eat and the air they breathe. 
Wheve men must labor long and hard for the means of 
subsistence, they have little time for thought and cult- 



PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 263 

ure. Nature has largely defined the limits of great 
intellectual development. In India, the people have 
been terrified by the grandeur and vastness of nature. 
Stretching from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of 
eternal snow, with jungles and interminable forests and 
vast deserts lying between, the people have been kept 
ignorant in a physical struggle for life, or have been 
overwhelmed with a sense of the vastness of nature. 
The little peninsula of Greece gave to the world its 
greatest orators and poets and warriors and statesmen 
and sculptors. Galton has shown that in one century 
the little district of Attica gave to the world fourteen 
of the ablest men who ever lived. Among these were 
Themistocles, Miltiades, Pericles, Thucydides, Socrates, 
Xenophon, Plato, JEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aris- 
tophanes, and Phidias. Buckle attempts to show that 
the reason was that in that land there was no great 
struggle with nature, and no physical terror cast over 
the people. Although this may account in part for the 
existence of so many great men, yet it does not give 
the full reason. Galton, with more philosophy, declares 
that Athens only offered attractions to men of the high- 
est ability, and that her social life was such as would 
only please and draw very able men ; and therefore, by 
a "partly unconscious selection, she built up a magnifi- 
cent breed of human animals," which have never been 
excelled, considering the narrow space and limited time. 
Whether these are all the reasons or not, we can see 
that there were reasons for great intellectual develop- 
ment in Athens, and that only under similar conditions 
could it be attained by other men. 

We can even see that nature has had much to do with 



264 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

the development of a belief in super-naturalism. In a 
country where there are vast mountains and deep for- 
ests filled with wild beasts, where men are under the 
terror of the storm or the earthquake, there is much 
more of a tendency to believe in the supernatural or 
miraculous than in a crowded city, where men come in 
contact with each other and cause certain results by 
their own efforts. Amid such surroundings, it is easy to 
believe that the thunder is the literal voice of a god 
and that every grove is inhabited by a spirit. Although 
Napoleon said once, contemptuously, "Circumstances! 
make your circumstances," yet it is a truth that in a 
large sense our circumstances make us, as that great 
selfish man learned to his sorrow. 

Time is an important factor in the formation of char- 
acter. Modern science teaches us that humanity has 
been developing from the less perfect to the more per- 
fect. When humanity has therefore only reached a cer- 
tain stage of development, the individual living at that 
time cannot live up to the morality of a more highly 
developed generation. Modern science teaches a decree 
as much as Calvinism. That decree is that by regular 
processes higher moral character is developed, and that 
therefore in some ages of the world men have been mor- 
ally incapable of a certain perfection. Certain ideas 
succeed at one time that destroy at another time. The 
seventeenth century was an age of conquest, and the 
present is essentially an age of arbitration. Some of 
our radical thinkers might not have been so much hated, 
if they had been born at a time when their type of man- 
hood would have been more in demand. 

Here, we might be checked in our line of thought by 






PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 2G5 

the objection that all this has nothing to do with moral 
character. Men may be affected intellectually or physi- 
cally by circumstances of birth and time, but yet they 
can absolutely control their moral character. But this 
objection is founded on an old theological fallacy that 
moral character is separate from the body and from the 
intellect. We do not know anything about moral char- 
acter, however, separate from the physical organism. 
All morality, too, depends upon that organism. Men 
cannot be moral in the true sense, whose physical nature 
is seriously perverted. Besides, all moral tendencies are 
handed down and preserved in an organism which is 
physical. Morals, too, depend upon the intellect in an 
important sense. If a man does not have mind enough 
and intelligence enough to understand the results of 
actions, he cannot be moral, because he may, in his igno- 
rance, mistake immorality for morality, evil for good. 
Therefore, as the moral character depends on the organ- 
ism and on the intellect, and as these are inherited by 
each man, his moral character is in one sense beyond his 
complete control. 

Sometimes, connection with a certain race affects a 
man's character. We say of the men of a certain 
nation that they are fickle or superficial or substantial. 
We cannot, therefore, ignore fickleness or firmness or 
impulsiveness in estimating character. The climate, too, 
may often be the most salubrious and the soil most 
fertile, and the aspect of nature the most pleasing, while 
the blood that runs through the veins of the man may 
mar his whole life. 

" There is a destiny that shapes our ends, rough-hew 
them how we will." Did the African with his thick lip 



266 the gospel of law. 

and dark skin have any choice between his physiognomy 
and that of the clear-skinned and high-browed Cauca- 
sian? Men are often blamed for a certain disposition 
or temperament. Other men are praised for the ] — 
session of that for which they deserve no credit. But 
the real character and conduct will largely depend upon 
the temperament. When we say that children are like 
their parents, we imply that they have been hedged in 
by a certain natural limit. Men are born with a certain 
natural moral bias. We know the coarse man or the 
possible murderer, when we look at the back of his neck; 
and we can tell whether a man is charitable or bigoted 
by looking into his eye or examining his forehead. The 
law of heredity is one of the most wonderful discov- 
eries of our age. I say discovery ; for, although it had 
been suggested before, it was never before reduced to 
a science. Blood does tell. By the development of 
certain faculties, those faculties become powerful, and 
are at last transmitted to children with increased power. 
Spencer, Lewes, and Fiske have well shown that Mr. 
Buckle made a great mistake, when he refused to con- 
sider race and heredity among his causes of character. 
As Mr. Fiske says beautifully, " A Philip becomes the 
father of an Alexander, the son of a Bernardo Tasso 
gives to the world a deathless poem, and a family of 
three hundred musical geniuses at last counts among 
its members a Jean Sebastian Bach." 

Even people who think they do not believe in hered- 
ity are continually appealing to it. The most ardent 
theoretical believer in the ordinary theory of converting 
a criminal until he is a white saint, in one hour, will se- 
riously object to having his daughter marry into certain 






PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 207 

families. The Joneses or Thompsons always were bad, 
he says ; and no good thing can come out of such a Naz- 
areth. He is partly wrong, too, because sometimes, 
according to heredity, a child will inherit the good quali- 
ties of ancestors several generations back; and all the 
good qualities of a certain ancestry will often be con- 
centrated in one individual. But the law is invariable, 
whether we discover it or not. On a certain record of 
a police court in a large city, the names of several hun- 
dred criminals were recorded, all the near or remote de- 
scendants of one vicious woman. 

We have had a practical illustration of this principle 
in the case of our late President and his assassin. The 
criminal is undoubtedly responsible largely for the pecu- 
liarly vicious education through which he has passed. 
His responsibility before the civil law, too, must be 
measured chiefly by the standard of the safety of so- 
ciety. But aside from all this, by a scientific measure- 
ment, it is easy to see the natural causes which produced 
his failure and the success of his victim. Garfield was 
descended on one side from the Huguenots and on 
the other from the Puritans. The vigor of Puritan 
blood we know; but the Huguenots also brought to Eng- 
land some of her best life-blood and many of her best 
industrial arts. Given then a man with such an ances- 
try, and we see easily how he might push himself into 
places of influence where the unbalanced criminal, with 
at least an imperfect nature at birth, would fail. 

Let no one make a mistake in considering this single 
point. Heredity is not the only cause of conduct in 
man. Circumstances and motives will come in to modify 
the hereditary tendency. There are a variety and a com- 



268 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

plexity of causes, but there is absolutely no accident, — 
no chance, — no uncertainty. Heredity will always make 
itself shown under the conditions. It is a sad fact, per- 
haps, but it is a fact, that there are men who would 
always commit a crime under certain circumstances. 
Not to speak of crimes, it is just as true that certain 
men and women would invariably act in a certain way 
under certain conditions. Certain circumstances will 
invariably make some men yield to the appetite for 
drink. The appetite is in them by inheritance, and all 
the conversions or resolutions that can be made does not 
change it. The theory that a church conversion will 
in a moment change an overpowering appetite is held 
in opposition to the undeniable fact that certain appe- 
tites become like a disease, as hereditary as consumption. 
The appetite maybe modified by time and new condi- 
tions, and by a development of other passions or ten- 
dencies. But no hocus-pocus can change in a moment 
a man's nature. In every direction, it is true that all 
will in man is merely the result of his nature and of 
conditions and motives. It is just as natural for men to 
love and hate as it is to breathe, and whether their love 
or hatred will result in good or not depends upon all 
the conditions. A great writer has said truly that there 
are certain men and women who are ripe to be each 
other's victims the moment they meet. They are sen- 
sual " by the superfluity of animal " in their nature. 
Show us the man and his surroundings, and we might 
tell whether he is to be Calvinist or liberal, or aboli- 
tionist or aristocrat. Some men are predisposed by the 
shape of their brain to be tyrannical or cruel. It is 
important to recognize this fact, as we will then know 



PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 269 

how to deal with them. Mourn over it as men will, it 
is a truth that just so long as men are born with unbal- 
anced natures, and then placed under false theological 
teaching and dangerous political customs, there will be 
crime, just as surely as there will be explosions when 
gunpowder is brought into contact with fire. 

It is often said that one man is born with genius and 
another with a weak mind, but genius and talent are 
original powers over which a man has no control. Who 
would not sing like Milton and Homer, if they could? 
Who would plod along in the common dust of earth, if 
they could write Hamlet or The Origin of Species? 
Is it the fault of the day laborer that he cannot speak 
like Burke or Pitt or Webster? Emerson declared 
philosophically : — 

" There's a melody born of melody, 
Which melts the world into a sea. 
Toil could never compass it ; 
Art its height could never hit ; 
It came never out of wit ; 
But a music music-born. 



Thy beauty, if it lack the fire 

Which drives me mad with sweet desire, 

What boots it ? 



Alas ! that one is born in blight, 

Victim of perpetual slight : 

When thou lookest on his face, 

Thy heart saith, ' Brother, go thy ways ! 

None shall ask thee what thou doest, 

Or care a rush for what thou knowest, 

Or listen when thou repliest.' 



270 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

And another is born 

To make the sun forgotten. 



One thing is forever good ; 
That one thing is Success.' 



The necessity of heredity and the necessity of sur- 
rounding circumstances are so intertwined that we n< ed 
not all the time try to keep up the distinction. Two 
boys leave the same home, one to a life of success, and 
tne other to a death of shame. Who can tell all the 
mysterious causes of the difference ? 

" From the same father's side, 
From the same mother's knee, 
One journeys to a gloomy tide, 
One to a peaceful sea." 

It sends a hush upon our egoism when we look out on 
society. One man worships the stars, and another wor- 
ships the Father of Jesus, because one man lives in Per- 
sia and another in the land of the Puritans. One child 
grows up into a noble life, because he is reared in a 
beautiful home or has quiet blood in his veins; and an- 
other goes to the gallows, because he was trained amid 
vice and degradation. And, as a power has been work- 
ing out our character even before we were born, so we 
will be great or good, as we are moved upon now by 
certain influences. Whatever theory we may have about 
a divine power in the universe, we know that character 
is largely moulded by a capacity to be impressed by cer- 
tain outside influences. Some men, because of their 
very nature, have little religious consciousness, do not 
even have a capacity to appreciate music or poetry; 
while others are played on all their lives by the most 



PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 271 

various influences. How absurd, then, to measure all 
men by the same standard, and to demand just the same 
outcome of character or even of happiness ! People are 
continually blamed for not appreciating certain religious 
theories or experiences, whereas there are men compara- 
tively moral who have no taste or capacity in that direc- 
tion. They may, of course, miss much by their lack of 
appreciation, and perhaps they are to blame for not try- 
ing to develop their natures in new directions, but as a 
matter of fact their natures do not respond to the same 
influences with those of others. We might just as much 
expect a violet to be as fragrant as a tube-rose or a vio- 
linist to produce all the variety and volume of sound of 
a full orchestra as to expect some men, who are even 
moral, to be moved and thrilled by all those strange, 
sweet influences of nature and music and eloquence 
which so arouse those of poetical and sensitive natures. 

To some persons, this doctrine of scientific necessity 
may seem like hopeless fatalism. But, in the first place, 
it is not fatalism. Fatalism declares that certain things 
must be : necessity simply affirms that they are. There 
is no blind goddess hopelessly fixing destiny, there is 
no harsh god cruelly predestinating our future. The 
necessity of science is simply that nature has certain 
laws, that certain causes and conditions produce certain 
effects. It is simply necessary, therefore, for a man to 
comply with the decrees of nature which are the so- 
called "laws of nature." That is a necessity, simply 
because the universe is consistent, and the same cause 
always has the same effect under identical conditions. 

This doctrine, too, is full of encouragement. We 
know now that the universe can be trusted. It is a ne- 



272 TIIK GOSPEL OP LAW. 

cessity — that is, a law — that water will run down hill, 
when not obstructed by some obstacle which also lias 
its law. We can be sure, too, that certain causes and 
conditions will always produce certain character in men. 
Our reforms, therefore, rest on some reliable basis, and 
the doctrine of necessity is full of hope. 

We have seen, too, that one of the necessities in a 
man's life is that, with a certain nature, he will act in 
a certain way under certain circumstances. Then, it is 
possible to change men by changing the circumstances 
and conditions. It is one of the possibilities of society to 
so change conditions as to help men and to modify their 
character. We can create new combinations and new 
motives. Passion along with a sensual nature produces 
drunkenness or debauchery, but passion along with bet- 
ter motives and ideas produces pure love and creates a 
home. Some men are born insane. We cannot help 
their insanity perhaps; but we can keep them from 
doing harm to themselves and others, and we might 
check the propagation of idiots. We cannot help it, 
perhaps, that men of unbalanced natures, like the assas- 
sin Guiteau, are born in the nineteenth century. Their 
natures are the result of heredity. We might, however, 
change the conditions under which such natures do such 
immense damage. First, we can help destroy the the- 
ology which makes such men think they are under the 
direct control of a god when they commit a crime ; and, 
secondly, we can destroy the whole political method 
which brings such office-seekers to our national capital. 
Science teaches that our lives are under fixed laws, but 
it also teaches that those laws are under a regular law of 
modification. Mr. Huxley may be considered scientific, 



PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 273 

surely; but he says that there are two established facts: 
"the first, that the order of nature is ascertainable by 
our faculties to an extent which is practically unlimited; 
the second, that our volition counts for something as a 
condition of the course of events." By education, phys- 
ical development, new ideas of the universe, the grad- 
ual formation of better tastes, the cessation of the 
propagation of idiots and criminals, society could be 
changed. We need not, however, expect a complete 
reform at once. These facts, however, are undeniable, — 
that men now are under the control of certain causes, 
and that these causes may be modified by new circum- 
stances. 

But nothing teaches more plainly than the philosophy 
of natural law the possibilities of helping men. The 
teaching of modern science is that man was made as he 
is by the universe. Certain environments have caused 
a necessity for the existence of certain functions or 
tastes or tendencies. Consequently, new environments 
or circumstances will in the end effectually modify the 
nature of men. We are the results of certain causes in 
the past ; and -we, too, become new causes for the future. 
While we are children of the past, we are parents of 
the future. Humanity is governed by an infallible law, 
but we are agents through whom that law works. 

But we, too, as individuals, have possibilities along the 
line of our own nature. We cannot absolutely change 
our inherited nature or develop any other nature than 
that which we have inherited ; but we can develop the 
best part of that nature. Here, then, is something prac- 
tical for all of us. We cannot develop our nature into 
some other man's nature, but we can develop the best 



274 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

part of ourselves instead of the worst. Here is what 
men mean when they say they can do what they will 
with their own nature. It is sometimes asserted that, if 
a man can only follow his own nature, he might as well 
give up trying, and only follow evil. But the comfort 
is that some men cannot cease to exert themselves. 
They have such a nature that they are prompted to 
make continual effort. That which they call evil is only 
one tendency in their nature; and, when they think they 
are to yield to it, they find that there are other elements 
of their nature that are stronger and which assert them- 
selves. A man's choice consists in this, that he can 
develop the best part instead of the worst of himself. 
By being placed in conditions where that best part of 
himself is developed, it gradually becomes stronger, and 
at last gains a triumph over that which is evil. When 
some man with a strong nature says to us, therefore, that 
he might as well become low and animal, we have no 
fear, because we know there are better elements in him 
that will not let him yield to that which is weakest. 
Each man has the possibility of developing his best self, 
though he cannot change to be like another man. We 
cannot say what all the influences around us and in us 
shall be, but we may make much or little of the influ- 
ences. We do not make our destiny, but we may mod- 
ify it. The child cannot help it that she has not as 
luxurious a home or as beautiful a face or as much 
genius as a playmate ; but by cultivating her thought 
power, and living for her best ideals, she may make the 
best rather than the worst out of her surroundings. If 
we are in a profession or in public life then, although 
we may never win honor, we can in all our actions stand 



PREDESTINATION AND SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY. 275 

for justice and fairness and integrity. We cannot help 
it that we were born amid poverty, but we can settle 
for ourselves whether we shall develop bitterness and 
envy in our nature, or crown our lives with manliness 
and generosity. We can decide whether we shall pay 
the most heed to the development of a sensual nature 
or to turning our ideals into realities. We cannot help 
it, if we have more passion than our neighbor, if our 
eys flashes fire while his is as calm as an evening star ; 
but we can guide our passion, and work it up into real 
noble power. Let us be glad that our manhood does 
not entirely depend on some prayer or activity or strug- 
gle of our own, but that there is a great current of in- 
fluences that took its rise away back in the chaos where 
stars were born, and that it is bearing us onward toward 
immortal beauty of life. Necessity, therefore, and mod- 
ification, are not contradictory, but the complements of 
each other. 

In the beautiful summer time, Nature seems to say to 
the man among his flowers and in the fields: "Work 
away among your flowers and grain, and take comfort 
in the thought that, with dew and sunshine and the life 
force, I work with you ; and, even when you rest, I go 
on forever, and there will yet be sweet roses and fields 
of golden wheat." So this other promise comes to the 
man in the development of himself : " Work out your 
own destiny, and take comfort in this: that there are 
eternal forces working for you and in you, that there 
are influences which were at work before you came into 
this existence that are carrying you onward to your 
ideal, that the royal blood of all the ages is flowing 
through your heart." 



IMMORTALITY. 

There is, perhaps, no one subject on which there will 
be so much difference of opinion in an intelligent audi- 
ence to-day as this one of immortality. It is not 
sible that you should all agree with any speaker on this 
question: it is not possible, because intelligent men do 
not agree among themselves. There are the most con- 
tradictory beliefs among the best of citizens and even 
believers in religion. There are those who firmly be- 
lieve in personal immortality; and there are those who 
would like to believe in it, but do not find sufficient 
proof. Impossible as it may seem, too, to the firm be- 
lievers, there are good moral men who do not have any 
hope of immortality, and do not desire immortality, even 
if they could have it. Mr. Emerson writes of a child, 
who had been taught that life would never end, and 
who then replied : " What ! will it never stop ? What ! 
never die? never, never? It makes me feel so tired." 
That child is not an isolated specimen either, as there 
are men and women who declare, as I have every reason 
to believe honestly, that the thought of immortal life is 
wearisome to them, and they do not want it. 

For different reasons, too, many consider any discus- 
sion of the question to-day at least unfortunate. The 
believers are, many of them, more or less conscious that 
at least many of the old arguments will not stand inves- 



IMMORTALITY. 277 

tigation; and, as their hopes are more precious to them 
than truth, if that truth should happen to be unpleasant, 
they prefer the doubtful support of unreliable proof to 
a discovery of facts. Many, too, who do not believe, 
themselves, still think it is better that the people should 
be indulged in a pleasant fiction, and therefore depre- 
cate investigation. On the other hand, there are those 
vrho consider the belief a delusion and a foolish specu- 
lation, and think it a waste of time to spend one mo- 
ment in its consideration. With the assertion that it is 
foolish to spend much time over mere matters of specu- 
lation, I heartily agree. " One world at a time " is a 
very good motto ; and while there are so many subjects 
full of living interest to men, while there are so much 
poverty and cruelty and sadness here and now, it is 
wrong to make prominent matters concerning which no 
man can know anything for certain. Even if immor- 
tality could be proved definitely and positively, it would 
be a waste of time to make it a principal subject of 
thought, as the best possible preparation for it would 
be a moral life on this earth. It is positively wrong, 
too, for men to make prominent in their teachings a 
subject which at best must be clothed in mystery; to 
give as actual descriptions of a future life the creations 
of their own fancy; to assert dogmatically what they 
know, or ought to know, is pure hypothesis; to make 
sweeping statements which are founded on no facts ; and 
to condemn as wicked those who are too honest or too 
intelligent to accept their unproved theories. But it is 
eminently fitting that we should once, at least, give this 
subject our careful consideration. 

It is not correct to say that the subject is of no im- 



278 THK GOSPEL OF LAW. 

portance to men, and has nothing to do with practical 
life. Anything that pertains to human existence is of 
importance. It is of importance, and of deep interest 
to the growing youth, to know whether he shall prob- 
ably live to be forty or sixty years of age. It would be 
wrong for him to neglect practical duties for the sake of 
speculating over the matter ; but still, in its own place, 
it would be a subject of interest. But if it is of some 
interest to know whether we shall likely live to-morrow 
or whether some child of ours shall live to reach matu- 
rity, why is it not of interest to consider the question 
whether we and those we love shall likely live on the 
to-morrow after death ? Even if we cannot know, there 
will be moments when even speculations, though they be 
unpractical, will seem of the most transcendent interest. 
Any one who visits a home where death has just en- 
tered, though mourning friends may have no dogmas 
on this question, will soon discover that it is of interest 
to the most sceptical ; and, though in honesty he will 
refuse to make unproved assertions, he will feel like sug- 
gesting at least a sweet Hope and a great Perhaps. As 
believers in a this-world religion, we may still, in a lim- 
ited degree, consider very consistently the probabilities 
of a future life. Let us attend to men here and now, 
but men here and now are affected by influences even 
beyond the realm of positive knowledge. Men are 
creatures of hope and wonder and aspiration as well 
as of every-day activity. Admitting that old arguments 
and theories have been false, that men had better have 
given their time to cleaning their own streets and edu- 
cating their children in morals, than to vain wonderings 
over the golden streets of a new Jerusalem, so much 



IMMORTALITY. 279 

time would not have been given to this matter, if it did 
not have some deep human interest. Prof. Ezra Abbot 
has prepared a bibliography of this subject, and finds 
that there have been written upon it at least 4,977 books. 
Many of the writers of those books might have been in 
better business, and the majority of the books are prob- 
ably full of falsehood and immoral teaching; but that 
so much has been written shows the intense human in- 
terest in the theme. Coleridge makes Wallenstein say 
of his dead friend what some of us might appreciate: — 

" Yet I feel what I have lost in him. 
The bloom is vanished from my life. 
For, O ! he stood beside me like my youth, 
Transformed for me the real to a dream, 
Clothing the palpable and familiar 
With golden exhalations of the dawn. 
Whatever fortunes wait my future toils, 
The beautiful is vanished — and returns not." 

Undoubtedly, the majority of intelligent men to-day 
have given up all dogmas concerning immortality; but 
it is generally in a true spirit of sincerity and because 
they want more light, and not because it is a matter of 
no consequence to them. Touched by the thought of 
mothers who have had their sweet babes taken from 
their arms, remembering orphan children who will never 
know the depth of a departed mother's love, calling to 
mind the illustrious dead who have thrilled the world 
with deeds of valor or inspired men with song and 
poem and inspiring eloquence, in the presence of marble 
now being carved to mark the resting-place of some of 
us, it is a question of living interest, Do the dead live 
again? Even if we cannot know or if we can know 



i 



280 THS GOSPEL OF LAW. 

that they do not, it is of interest, even if of a sad kind, 
to know our ignorance or our loss. Besides, if it is 
manly to want to live here, I do not see how it is un- 
manly to wish to live hereafter, even if we are not cer- 
tain the wish can be gratified. 

But, on the other hand, supposing we have no posi- 
tive proof, is that a reason for practising deception and 
keeping silence? It seems like a parody on faith to be 
so afraid to find out the truth, lest we should lose our 
arguments. If there is no proof of immortality, then 
I want to know it: if the common arguments in its 
favor at least are false, then I want to know that. Let 
us build our hopes upon no falsehood. Whatever is to 
be is well, and we should not fear to find it out. Let 
us go down into death with our eyes open. If immor- 
tal life is too uncertain for us to make it a basis of 
activity, then let us find it out, in order that we may 
find some verifiable fact that is sufficient. We want to 
be soothed by no opiates of priestcraft and ignorance. 
Let us not fear to meet annihilation, if that is our des- 
tiny. We ought to spurn with honest contempt all the 
arguments which cannot bear the light of investigation. 
Unless this universe is all a lie, men will not be perma- 
nently helped by a belief which is not founded on facts. 
Let us then consider the essential facts and arguments 
on this question. 

The greatest difficulty in considering the subject of 
immortality is that men settle it by prejudices rather 
than by arguments. They make their wishes and hopes 
stand for proof. 

Two assumptions, at least, must be removed, before 
we can discover any real truth on this question. 



IMMORTALITY. 281 

One assumption, which is not very common, but which 
nevertheless has its influence in some arguments to-day, 
is that a belief in immortality is an evidence of intel- 
lectual weakness. There is some reason for such an 
assumption. Any really intelligent and thoughtful men 
cannot help but know that the common arguments for 
such a belief grow out of human ignorance. Men as- 
sert the most dosrmatieallv in regard to a future life : 
whereas, if they knew the facts in regard to the records 
on which they base their arguments, they would have 
no proof. The people, too, who are the surest on the 
subject, are often the most ignorant; and, the less they 
really know, the more definite are all their descriptions 
of the future. The surer men have been about a future, 
the more coarse and sensual and barbaric have been 
their heavens or hells. The more refined men become, 
the less they dogmatize; and, even if they retain a belief, 
they confess that they have no clear conception of what 
the future is to be. An acquaintance with the growth 
of popular belief and a knowledge of the real nature of 
man have undoubtedly robbed men of the certainty of a 
future life. Consequently there has grown up in some 
minds an idea that it is a sign of ignorance to believe in 
it. But it is unwarrantable to assume that it is a sign of 
intellectual superiority to be a disbeliever. A belief or 
not belief has no intellectual significance whatever. It 
does not make a man any the less scientific or acutely 
intellectual, because he maintains, after giving up false 
arguments, that he hopes for a continuance of life. The 
quality of his mind is to be discovered simply by the 
kind of basis on which he builds his hopes. 

Another assumption which prejudices this whole ques- 



282 TriE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

tion and makes it almost impossible to find out the truth 
about it is that a belief in immortality is an evidence 
of moral character; and a disbelief, of immorality. For 
example, if I were to assert that I was a firm believer 
in immortality, it would at once raise me in the estima- 
tion of many people, though my moral character would 
not be at all affected by such an assertion. On the other 
hand, if I were to state that I saw no good reason for 
such a belief, many would at once pronounce me dan- 
gerously immoral, though it might be in the interests of 
truth and honesty that I made this latter statement. 
The fact is, however, that the only morality about the 
whole subject in itself is that it is immoral to support it 
by false arguments, as is often done, and that it might 
be in the interests of the highest morality for a man to 
state that he saw no proof. Unless we can lay aside 
prejudices like these, we can never find out the truth. 
A belief in immortality has nothing directly to do with 
morality. A man is no more moral because he says that 
he expects to live to all eternity than if he says he ex- 
pects to live till he is sixty. His morality depends upon 
how he lives, not how long. Some of the best men do 
not believe in a future life : many of the most coarse and 
sensual men are firm believers in it, and their highest 
ideal of eternity is a place for eternal sensual pleasures. 
They obey a few commandments here, perhaps, which 
may or may not be really moral, not because they are 
really virtuous, but for the sake of eternal sugar plums 
after death. There are good moral men who do not 
even want immortality. I do not agree with them; but 
I am not necessarily any better for my hope, and they 
are morally no worse for their lack of hope. Histori- 



IMMORTALITY. 283 

cally, it can be shown that this doctrine has not only 
not been any cause of morality, but has really hindered 
morals. As it has been held, it has taught men to turn 
their attention from real good conduct in this life to 
such forms and services as would bring them eternal 
life. Instead of trying to make men happy here, it has 
led its believers to placate a whimsical God who would 
give a reward there. It was largely the cause of priest- 
craft. If God was to be placated in order that men 
might win future happiness, then there must be priests 
and mediators who were to intercede for the people. 
Hence grew up a class of men who lorded it over the 
people, and interfered with marriage and commerce and 
natural happiness, in the supposed interests of a future 
life. The Inquisition and the rack, and all persecutions, 
historically grew out of a belief that a future life was 
the most important, and that any means might be used 
to make men suffer here in order that they might be 
happy there. The most ardent defenders of the doc- 
trine, too, have often attached morality to a belief in it 
in such a manner as to really endanger the natural foun- 
dations of morality. Luther said that, if there were no 
future life, men ought to " plunge into lechery, rascality, 
robbery, and murder." Said Massillon, " If we wholly 
perish with the body, the maxims of charity, patience, 
justice, honor, and gratitude, are but empty words." 
Even Paul said that, if the dead rise not, "let us eat 
and drink, for to-morrow we die"; that is, let us be 
simply sensual. Of course, those men believed that 
there was need of virtue, though they so fixed it on 
the conditions of a future as to destroy the real founda- 
tions of morality in this life. But the greatest histon- 



284 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

cal proof is that some of the most moral people on earth 
do not have any belief in a future at all. Mr. Spencer, 
Miss Bird, and others, show that there are tribes which 
have a good morality, and yet have no belief in im- 
mortality. England and America have the most be- 
lievers in a tangible future life; and yet, according to 
the testimony of the most careful observers, there is as 
much immorality in Liverpool and London and New 
York as in any great cities of the world. The national 
policy of England is as selfish as that of any nation on 
earth. Its dealings with other nations, its wars of con- 
quest and cruelty, even in our day, do not show that its 
belief in this doctrine is much aid to morality. Logi- 
cally, a belief in a continued existence after death does 
not tend to make a man moral, any more than a belief 
that he will live to be ninety instead of forty. Even 
those of us who may believe in a future life, if we are 
moral at all, are not so because of that belief. That 
future life is too distant and shadowy to be a present 
motive. If we are moral, we are so because of a good 
organism, because of outward influences, because of mo- 
tives which are direct, and because we find the most life 
and happiness in morality. Practically, that other-world 
belief, as held by many people, tends to immorality. A 
belief in some way to get life by living long instead of 
living dee]), in getting it by substitution instead of per- 
sonal effort, tends to make starved, narrow natures. 
This prejudice ought therefore to be taken out of the 
way, in considering this subject. 

One consideration that may bring us some comfort is 
that any uncertainty that may have grown up in modern 
times in regard to the proof for a future life does not 



IMMORTALITY. 285 

take away any noble man's happiness. In the first place, 
if there is such a life, and if there is anything good in 
it, our lack of evidence now will not change the fact. 
But the essential point is even more practical. Modern 
scepticism in regard to the evidence really increases 
any noble man's happiness. This of course is not the 
popular conception. The assertion is continually made 
that modern rationalism is hopeless, and leaves us noth- 
ing to comfort us. But any immortality that is not 
proved, in spite of old arguments, would positively be 
a curse. Immortality simply means continued existence 
after death, without any regard to the nature of that 
existence. All the proofs of the Church, founded on 
revelations, in regard to a future life, have been asso- 
ciated with the theory that for a large number of the 
human family immortality would mean eternal misery. 
Historically, among the Hebrews, Paradise grew out 
of Sheol. Originally, Sheol meant simply the dark 
underworld, where good and bad went alike. After 
coming in contact with Persian thought, the Jew di- 
vided his Sheol into a Gehenna and a Paradise. But 
into the Paradise were to go the Jews only. Histor- 
ically, Christianity never grew away from that narrow 
conception. Only the baptized were to enter the 
heaven of the Catholic, and only the elect into that 
of the Calvinist. Even down to our day, the doctrine 
of immortality has been only a terror to the masses. 
Mere continued existence which means eternal pain for 
a large number, if not the majority, is not, after all, so 
much more comforting than agnosticism; and the Church 
has taught that a large number would so suffer, and in 
fact that the number of the lost would far exceed that 
of the saved. / 



286 



I II K GOSPEL OF LAW. 



Instead of this doctrine ever having been full of hope, 
it has been a terror. Not to dwell on the fact that the 
conventional heaven has been desired by any active man 
as only a little better than positive pain, the very re- 
spectable people, who so dread criticism of their dear 
old doctrines, have no idea that immortality is to be 
much of a comfort to anybody but themselves. A 
Scotch preacher once said he did not want to go to 
heaven in a crowd, and a great number of people to- 
day are of the same opinion. The Church has taught 
that a large number, if not a majority of men, are to 
have eternal existence at the expense of pain and 
agony. A proclamation of a doctrine like this is called 
a gospel, — "good news"; and everybody who denies 
it is called an agnostic, and charged with taking away 
the precious faith of the people. But we have not lost, 
but gained in comfort, if we discover that the arguments 
on which such a theory is based are utterly worthless 
and unreliable. Negatively, therefore, if modern ration- 
alism has destroyed these arguments, it is so much clear 
gain for the aggregate happiness of man. 

But, even in its purest aspect, supposed revealed 
proofs have brought less happiness to men than many 
persons comprehend. Let me anticipate here enough 
to say that any immortal life for which a rationalist 
may hope must be indescribable, because beyond expe- 
rience. Feeling his own greatness as a man, he may 
have a large, sweet hope ; but, the moment he puts that 
hope into details, he is perplexed. Can any man put 
into words an idea of a future existence that will not 
make such an existence seem either absurd or consider- 
ably below annihilation ? Can any man put into words 



IMMORTALITY. 287 

any meeting of friends in heaven that would not suggest 
to a thoughtful man more misery than happiness? I 
need not speak at length of the lost unbelievers, who, 
according to Evangelicism, will be absent; nor need I 
dwell on the fact that the early Church never had any 
conception of an immediate entrance into heaven after 
death, as the dead were to dwell in a dark underworld 
to await the resurrection. But take the popular concep- 
tion. Who are to meet in heaven after death? Not 
people with bodies, we know; for those bodies are in 
the grave. But the men and women we have loved had 
bodies; and, although there was something about them 
better than their outward frame, it took their bodies to 
constitute their personality. Can any live, healthful 
man receive much comfort by the promise that he shall 
meet a something after death, perhaps angelic, which is 
neither to be wife nor lover as they were here? When 
the sister of De Quincey died, that great writer declared 
that he was almost in despair (he was a boy then) when 
the minister read those memorable words of Paul, " We 
shall be changed." That was the sting of it, — that his 
girl sister, "who had crowned the earth with beauty" 
for him, was to be changed ; and yet this conception is 
the purest and most elevating that has ever been held 
by dogmatic believers in a future life. But what intel- 
lectual man would care for an eternity in the company 
of those who make faith superior to intelligence, and 
who really think heaven is to be filled with their kind? 
An hour spent in the company of those who are the 
surest of their heaven is long enough now. Who could 
endure their everlasting companionship ? Whether we 
gain anything or not, we are losing nothing in this age, 



288 THE GOSrEL OF LAW. 

when we lose faith in the only immortality the tradi- 
tional Church has ever tried to prove. 

But whether immortality will bring much happiness 
to us as individuals depends upon what we mean by it. 
The word, broadly, means unending existence. Now, it 
is according to a law, perhaps, that nothing is ever lost 
in this universe. We are immortal, undoubtedly, in the 
sense that all of our power will be somewhere. It can- 
not go out of existence. But immortality might there- 
fore mean a great many things. The modern Positivist 
says that man is immortal in the sense that the influence 
of his character will still exist in humanity. The harp 
is destroyed, but the tunes which have been played on 
it are still in existence. The Buddhist goes into iVtr- 
vana, into the Great All of life. The scientist might 
say that the force in a man is still conserved in the 
universe. All these are in their way suggestions of im- 
mortality, continued life. A man might talk flippantly 
of immortality, and yet hold any one of these theories. 
It is wonderful how multitudes are deceived by a word. 
There are men who are honored as comforting teachers 
of immortality, who really have no belief in any per- 
sonal immortality for the masses of the people, but who 
gain a reputation for conservatism by using old w r ords. 

But let us see what comfort we can have, even at the 
loss of our present consciousness. If we are swallowed 
up or annihilated, then at least we will never know our 
loss. But, if we will be comparatively new beings, it 
will be nothing essentially different from what we are 
now. None of us who are men are the same, either in 
body or thought or sentiment, we were when we were 
children. We cannot put ourselves back into the old 



IMMORTALITY. 289 

consciousness of childhood, if we would. Our happiness 
is in what we are now. Not one of us can trace in our 
thought all the links in the chain of being. We live in 
what we are. If we are to be conscious after death, it 
will be a comparatively new consciousness. I only sug- 
gest this line of thought to show that we need not fret 
ourselves. We never live but one moment at a time ; 
and what that change might be at death we know not, 
only it will not be necessary that we should be living 
over the past. 

But, taking immortality in its ordinary meaning to 
mean a continuation of conscious personal existence, 
what is the proof? The ordinary proof advanced by 
the Church is of no value whatever. A common argu- 
ment for it is that all men have believed in it, and there- 
fore it must be true. But, if all men had believed in 
it, it would be no argument. The masses of men in the 
past have believed in many things that we know now to 
be false. They have believed in a universe governed by 
angry gods instead of by law. It really makes us doubt 
any argument for immortality, sometimes, when we con- 
sider how the belief in it came into the world. Men 
heard echoes, saw a shadow in the water, thought they 
saw another self in dreams, and therefore concluded 
that the other part of man existed after death. But 
we know their conceptions of another self were false, 
and our knowledge of that fact detracts from any value 
we might attach to their belief in immortality. Be- 
sides, we know now that men in the past had no means 
of finding out truth on this question which we do not 
now possess. They had less opportunity, because they 
were more ignorant and superstitious. It almost de- 



290 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

stroys one's belief, sometimes, when lie considers that 
perhaps he would never have thought of a future life 
at all, if he had not inherited the idea from men who 
were so ignorant and superstitious in their conceptions 
of the universe. But even the statement of this argu- 
ment is false. All men have not believed in immortal- 
ity. Even men who believed in ghosts or another self 
did not think of them always as immortal. The de- 
parted ghost was supposed to live near by for a time, 
but in many tribes a grandfather was forgotten or not 
thought of as existing. A religion, too, like Buddhism, 
which has three times as many adherents as Christianity, 
while it has a god, has no conscious future existence for 
men. Nirvana means an absorption into Buddha, or 
at least something more indefinite than our Occidental 
conception of active personal existence. Besides, many 
tribes have been found which have neither a belief in a 
God nor in a future life. That argument, therefore, is 
of no value. 

There is no proof, either, from the supposed revela- 
tions recorded in a book. The Book which is supposed 
to contain a proof of immortality has not sufficient his- 
torical value to be accepted as proof. It is a composi- 
tion of different men during thousands of years, — men 
who do not pretend to be infallible, and who had no 
means of gaining information on the subject which we 
do not possess. Besides, the Hebrew did not pretend 
to believe in the natural immortality of the soul. Be- 
fore the Captivity, he believed in Sheol, a dark under- 
world, where good and bad went alike, and concerning 
which he had no definite idea either as to time or con- 
dition. The early Christians were interested in setting 



IMMORTALITY. 291 

up an earthly Messianic kingdom, and did not trouble 
themselves about natural immortality. There is no evi- 
dence that Jesus ever taught anything definite on the 
subject of the natural immortality of the soul. He 
taught, on the moral side, what kind of life men must 
lead to enter his kingdom on earth, and was not talking 
about length of life. Jesus did not rise from the grave ; 
and, even if he had, it would prove nothing on the 
subject of immortality. Those who declare that he did 
rise make him a distinct order of being; but, if a dis- 
tinct order of being could rise from the grave, it would 
be no comfort to us, who are not distinct from other 
men, and a rising from the grave would not prove end- 
less existence. 

There is, of course, the supposed argument from the 
intuitions ; but our intuitions are the combined result of 
a nature we have inherited and outside influences and 
education. Would we have an intuition of immortality, 
if we had not been educated to believe in it ? 

What, then, can be said positively ? There is no pos- 
itive proof of any continued personal existence after 
death. Nothing can be proved that cannot be verified 
by experiment. Anything that has been tested by the 
experience of man can be said to be proved. But as 
no living man ever yet experienced future life, or has 
any testimony that any man ever did experience it, no 
living man has absolute proof of it. For example, we 
have absolute proof of the effects of opium upon the 
human mind and body, because there are multitudes of 
men who have experienced the effects of opium. We 
know the absolute value of a moral life, because thou- 
sands of instances have been given where certain con- 

( 



292 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

duct can be proved to be the best. But no man knows 
from any experience that man lives after death, because 
no living man has experienced death. The fact that 
there have been very strange manifestations to some 
men is no absolute proof. Something strange does not 
prove immortal life. There are many things that some 
of us cannot explain and do not understand. You do 
not understand telegraphy perhaps, I do not understand 
the telephone; but that does not prove anything but our 
ignorance. Some men may understand both of them ; 
and, even if there are some things which no living man 
understands, it does not prove immortality. 

But, nevertheless, I have a firm hope of immortality. 
I have no dogma, and I would not be satisfied with any 
dogma. Some things I know, some things I only hope. 
Both are valuable to me, but both cannot be presented 
with the same power to others. 

No man can force his hopes upon others, and there- 
fore it will be more modest to merely utter one's own 
grounds of hope. There are moments in my life when 
I see but little to encourage the hope ; but, after reject- 
ing all traditional proof, a hope of immortality is a fac- 
tor in my life. Let me suggest some grounds of hope, 
not presenting them, however, as positive proof, or even 
daring to believe they may satisfy others. 

The first suggestion is that such a hope is in perfect 
consistency with science. The best modern science is 
not materialistic. We know nothing about manhood, 
about thought or love or consciousness, separate from 
matter; but at the same time no man has ever yet 
proved that consciousness and thought are material. 
There is a movement in the material atoms when men 



IMMORTALITY. 293 

think, but there is a great gulf fixed between any mate- 
rial movement and that thought. In other words, there 
is something in man that cannot be resolved into matter 
or motion. There is absolutely no community of nature 
between a movement in the atoms of matter and thought 
and feeling. 

Closely allied with this fact is the doctrine of evolu- 
tion. Starting low down, the universe has at last reached 
consciousness in man. I cannot imagine any loss of that 
consciousness that would not be a step backward. Have 
we come so far for nothing? Has the universe strug- 
gled so long, and at last produced a Shakspere's thought 
and a mother's love only to lose them? This would 
seem like degradation, but not evolution. Do not mis- 
understand me to say that the scientific doctrine of evo- 
lution teaches immortality. It teaches nothing whatever 
on the subject, and only deals in the knowable. What 
I say is that a hope of immortality is in perfect consist- 
ency with evolution and every established science. It 
is worth something to know that science has nothing 
to say against any such hope. As it has no dogmas 
outside of its own realm, and as our only rational hope 
of conscious immortality must be of a life not definable, 
science can have and does have no arguments to dis- 
prove it. 

It is perfectly rational, too, that intelligent men should 
believe in immortality. No matter if the belief in the 
past has been connected with false conceptions, it is per- 
fectly consistent with the manhood of one who lives a 
deep life to-day that he should have that life last and 
develop. A deep life, we feel, ought to la6t. Moreover, 
if we have been formed by the universe, all that there is 



294 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

in us ought to have some meaning. Something in this 
universe lias created our hope and aspiration and long- 
ing for life. Do not our hope and craving suggest a 
possibility of satisfaction? The universe has caused the 
fins on the fish and the claws on the lobster, and they 
are adapted to their surroundings; but is our hope and 
craving for larger life, which environment has cause* 1, 
to have no native element? We have not had haif a 
chance to try ourselves here. Is there no infinite ocean 
of life, wdiere there shall be a responsive element? 

I know, of course, the other side to such suggestions. 
Nothing might be lost to the universe, and yet our per- 
sonal consciousness might be sw r allowed up. But, after 
all, is not our isolated consciousness a peculiar power? 
" We stretch vain hands," of course ; but this suggestion 
is in consistency with our nature, and does not contra- 
dict facts. What mean these deep revelations of life 
that come to us in pure love that is so sweet in its sug- 
gestion that it causes us pain from the lack of pure and 
perfect fulfilment here? What mean these revelations 
which come to us in the w r eird music of Ole Bull and 
Beethoven ? What means this mysterious secret which 
is suggested in starry nights or on lofty mountains or 
wild seas or in the perfume of June roses, except they 
suggest a depth of sweetness and being never yet ex- 
plored ? 

" A yearning for some hidden soul of things, 
Some outward touch complete in inner springs 
That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain, 
A want that did but grow with gain 
Of all good else." 



IMMORTALITY. 295 

The larger we grow, the larger our wants, until we 
continue in the pure strain of George Eliot: — 

11 My heart, too, widens with its widening home: 
But song grows weaker, and the heart must hreak 
For lack of voice, or fingers that can wake 
The lyre's full answer; nay, its chords were all 
Too few to meet the growing spirit's call." 

But, in suggesting the reason of our hopes, we suggest 
why we hope. It is our best nature makes us hope. If 
we were only to find rest, we could find it as well, and 
better, in annihilation or absorption. But along with 
the development of the intellect has grown a desire to 
solve the mysterious problems of the universe. When 
we are at our best, we crave to know the secret, we want 
to get behind the veil to know more of what it all means, 
and would be willing to suffer something in another life 
for the sake of knowing more of life's mystery. 

Of course, I know that mere suggestions like these 
will be no proof to multitudes of people. It will be no 
proof to men who want proof texts and dogmas — and 
who are angry if we do not give proof, whether we can 
honestly or not — to make suggestions of deep, sweet, 
indescribable life. Here are no golden harps, no jew- 
elled crowns, counted out and numbered. Here, too, is 
no scientific proof, simply because there is none. But 
suggestions that are in consistency with science, and are 
not presented in array against it, are better than false 
proofs or pseudo-scientific ones. Such attempted proofs 
as those of Balfour Stewart and Tait are as unsatisfac- 
tory as dogmas of coarse materializations or resurrected 
bodies. Their " unseen world " is simply this material 



296 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

universe described in terms of ether and atoms; but 
ether and atoms are not theoretically " unseen " to the 
man of science. "Ether" bodies and an ether " unseen 
world " are simply more abstract terms of material sci- 
ence, as Mr. Fisk'2 has w r ell shown. But it is something 
to know that true science has no negation concerning 
any hope that lies beyond the material. It may not 
affirm, because such a life is beyond its affirmations; but 
its best supporters have no sneer for any honest, human 
expectation. 

There are some practical conclusions to which we may 
come in a rational consideration of this question. How- 
ever much some of us may believe or hope in this mat- 
ter, many honest, moral men have no proof satisfactory 
to themselves. But, whether men have or not, what 
then? Taking the facts just as they are, that there can 
be no positive proof for some of us, what is the con- 
clusion ? 

First, we ought to make this life the best and deepest 
possible. One thing we know: that certain conduct in 
this life can be proved the best, whether there is or not 
an existence after death. Even if there is nothing be- 
yond death, it is worth while to make this life deep and 
broad and manly. Indeed, if we were sure of nothing 
beyond, so much the more reason why we should try to 
live out our best lives now, in the only existence we 
know for certain. Of one kind of future life, we can be 
certain, — that we shall live after death in our influence 
upon others. Such Positivisms as Mr. Harrison enter 
upon a hopeless task, when they try to make a belief in 
and a hope for an immortal influence a substitute for an 
immortal personal life. There is no more selfishness in 



IMMORTALITY. 297 

wishing to live after death than before that event. But 
it is grand to live for that much at least. No poetry will 
ever express a nobler sentiment than that of George 
Eliot : — 

" Oh, may I join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence. . . . 
So to live is heaven: 
To make undying music in the world." 

But, if there is to be a future life, there can be no 
better preparation for it than to make this one deep and 
pure and sweet. According to all analogies, whatever 
will fit us for deep living here will fit us for the best liv- 
ing hereafter, as we cannot carry over after death any 
better character than we have here. 

But this is our deepest faith, that we so believe in 
the Universe that we can trust that all things are moving 
onward toward the best. At least, we are immortal in 
some sense. If personal consciousness is not the best, 
then something else awaits us that is better. We can 
walk then through the dark valley and shadow of death 
and fear no evil; for, whether our personal consciousness 
is to be preserved or is to be swallowed up in the uni- 
verse, all is well. Though we have no dogmas, therefore 
we can have a sweet hope and a firm trust that whatever 
is to be is well. 



THE GOSPEL OE LAW. 

We have considered together in detail the most 
prominent doctrines of the Church of tradition. It is 
appropriate for us now to sum up in substance the re- 
sult of our investigations, to draw some practical con- 
clusions, and then to decide positively what fundamental 
doctrine or theory there is for us as lovers of truth. 
Let us understand the special object in this particular 
study of religious beliefs. It is not that we may settle 
every moral and intellectual problem in the universe or 
frame a complete philosophy of religion. There is a 
great realm of truth yet to be investigated for our own 
moral and intellectual improvement. But our object in 
this special line of investigation is specific and practical. 
We wish to form some correct conclusion in regard to a 
theological system which is called a "Gospel," and we 
also wish to find what will be a basis for a real gospel 
in consistency with facts. We find that there is pro- 
claimed in society to-day a certain scheme of salvation 
which is called a - Gospel.*' That gospel is based on 
supernaturalism. It presupposes a certain supernatural 
revelation attested by miracles, a special Saviour with a 
peculiar birth and death and with special powers of sav- 
ing men and suspending natural laws. It presupj - - 
the infallibilitv of a certain book which it makes a 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 299 

standard of truth, and the special sacredness and truth- 
fulness of a certain religion or theology ; and it promises 
salvation only to a certain portion of the human race. 
That there is just such a gospel still is most manifest, 
although sometimes people who move in secluded cir- 
cles seem to think it is outgrown. It is no "superla- 
tive" to assert that thousands of preachers and millions 
of people not preachers, in the United States, still nomi- 
nally uphold just such a gospel. We need not imagine 
that the old inherited gospel is only proclaimed by the 
Brother Jaspers who are now proving from the Bible 
that the sun moves around the earth because Joshua 
once commanded it to stand still. The pastor of one of 
the largest Presbyterian churches in the country has 
been preaching a series of sermons recently, in which he 
even upholds the story of the creation of woman from 
the side of Adam, upholds the essential truthfulness of 
the story of Joshua causing the sun to stand still, and 
even the fish story in Jonah. According to a Boston 
newspaper, Prof. Townsend, a few weeks since, preached 
in that city upon "The Scientific Possibility of Bible 
Miracles," and argued that they were manifest violations 
of the operations of the known laws of nature. Even 
so liberal an orthodox paper as The Independent of New 
York, in a recent article, criticised the position of Prof. 
Stearns that the miracles "no more prove the divinity of 
Christ," and declared that it is " the Christ of miracles 
and the resurrection that give Christianity its historical 
foundation." During the last year, a notable contro- 
versy has been carried on in the columns of The North 
American Review, one of the defenders of the popular 
gospel being a layman and the other a distinguished 



300 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

theologian. The layman, Judge Black, surely represents 
somebody, as he is an educated man in other depart- 
ments; and he says in his article approvingly of the 
gospel of to-day that " parents teach their children that 
Christ is God, and his system of morality is absolutely 
perfect," also that the doctrines of Christianity "are 
divinely revealed, its fundamental facts incontestably 
proved." The "Christian religion" which he upholds, 
according to his argument, also teaches that punishment 
for blasphemy and idolatry was right; that wars of 
conquest were right ; that God authorized human slav- 
ery ; and that the toleration of polygamy was by divine 
revelation. He also upholds the credibility of the re- 
puted records and of the infallibility of the Scriptures. 
He makes the death of Jesus an atonement to avert 
divine justice, and upholds the dogma of an eternal 
hell. Prof. Fisher has been applauded on every hand 
as a scholarly defender of the advanced Orthodoxy of 
our age ; but, although he makes many concessions to 
modern criticism, especially in regard to the Bible, he 
still upholds supernaturalism. In answering the ques- 
tion "What is Christianity?" he divides it into facts 
and doctrines. In giving the facts, he says that the 
kingdom "began in the separation of one man, Abra- 
ham"; that this kingdom "was carried from stage to 
stage until its consummation through Jesus Christ ; that 
within this kingdom true religion was planted, until it 
arrived at perfection in the final or Christian stage of 
revelation"; and that the Bible is "pervaded by another 
spirit " from all other books. He then excuses Hebrew 
slavery and the conquests of the Canaanites, the act of 
Paul in sending Onesimus back into slavery, upholds 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 301 

the historical accuracy of the miracles and genuineness 
of the New Testament, and misrepresents Strauss, while 
claiming the truthfulness of the legend of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus, and defends Paley, who founded Chris- 
tianity upon the miracles, as " one of the ablest defenders 
of Christianity." The doctrines of Christianity he makes 
to consist in Theism, the Trinity, the atonement of Jesus 
as a " substitute for punishment " on the part of God, 
and says that eternal punishment of some kind is so 
fundamental a doctrine that "Christianity stands or 
falls with it." This much notice of current beliefs is 
necessary, in order to show that we are not wasting our 
time in considering theories that are no more believed 
and in order that we may have some idea as to what is 
the popular gospel of our age. 

We hear on every hand the necessity of accepting 
then this gospel of super naturalism. We are informed 
that the man who rejects it has no motive for living, and 
that his life is without hope and joy. The criticism is 
continually made upon modern science and free thought 
that they make their believers sad and despondent. 
Even Tennyson has written a poem in his old age on 
Despair^ which has been quite generally supposed to be 
a criticism upon all those who reject the old gospel. 
Let us therefore sum up this gospel which it is supposed 
is so necessary for human happiness and hopefulness. 

The word " gospel " means " good news." On exam- 
ination, however, we discover that this theory of super- 
naturalism is no gospel, because in the first place it is 
not news. It is as old as human ignorance and barbarism 
and fear. In its popular form, it has not one original 
feature, but has been borrowed and revamped from 



302 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

every crude science and mythology and tyrannical gov- 
ernmental theory in every race of antiquity. The doc- 
trine of sin and an atonement came from the old barbaric 
fenr of ghosts and dead chiefs and vindictive gods. The 
common idea of prayer and a special providence came 
from the ignorance of men who knew nothing about 
natural cause and effect, and thought everything was 
managed by deities. The theories of miraculous births 
and immaculate conceptions had done duty long before 
Christianity. The " Trinity " came from Egypt and ( I 
ticism, the doctrines of resurrections and a division of 
the underworld into a Gehenna and a Paradise from 
Persia. The devil had his origin in the "principle of 
evil" of Zoroastrianism, and has been modified by 
every dark foreboding which has been expressed in any 
mythology of any age and every land. There is, histori- 
cally, not one original feature in this " gospel " of super- 
naturalism; and, although many of those who technically 
proclaim it give men news and information, they do not 
get them from the "gospel," but from the science and 
scholarship which it is declared are in enmity with their 
system. 

Then, a gospel must be good news. We hear much 
about the sadness of rationalism and agnosticism and 
the joy of the gospel; but, if it is comfort which is to be 
sought, agnosticism is infinitely more desirable than the 
popular gospel. According to that gospel, a large num- 
ber of the human race are to be eternally lost. It is not 
very good news to be informed that our moral wives 
and children and dearest friends may, because of some 
lack of belief, be separated from us forever, and forced 
to endure infinite loss, if not infinite pain. It is nothing 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 303 

to the point either to assert that all men might be saved, 
if they would only receive the gospel, because we are 
talking here of the joy of this gospel ; and, according to 
it, some men icill not receive it, multitudes of men have 
not received it, and, according to its teachings, sweet 
babes and gentle women may go down into everlasting 
punishment. It is true that modern believers try to 
modify this scheme so as to give babes and heathen a 
chance, because they have not heard the gospel ; but, 
by a peculiar kind of logic, these believers send this 
gospel to the heathen, and even allow their children 
to grow to manhood. If the heathen would be saved 
without it, it surely is not good news to send them a 
message that they may reject, and in the rejection of 
which they may be eternally lost ; and it would be a 
mercy to children not to allow them to grow up, lest 
they become agnostics and at last be eternally con- 
demned. 

Just so far as men really feel happy over such a gos- 
pel, they prove themselves almost hopelessly cruel. If 
it is true, of course we must believe it : but it would be 
the saddest news, and not the gladdest, that ever came 
to human ears. Fortunately, men are better than their 
creeds, thanks to rationalism and modern intelligence ; 
and therefore many modern believers are not so cruel 
and heartless as they profess to be in calling such a sys- 
tem of sadness, good news. The significance of this 
belief in the popular system is not essentially changed 
because of the indefiniteness of such polite men as Prof. 
Fisher in not defining what future punishment means. 
The fear of punishment that cannot be defined is just 
as destructive to human joy and activity, for the indefi- 



304 



THK GOSPEL OF LAW. 



niteness only makes men uncertain as to how it can be 
avoided. Even on the most selfish side, this gospel is 
not good news to men. Among those who really be- 
lieve in it, none but a few of the most ignorant and 
egoistic have ever been quite sure that they were among 
the saved ; and the uncertainty has hung over multitudes 
of sensitive people with a terrible foreboding of doom. 
If men were to have nothing in its place, then it would 
be good news to know that this old gospel of supersti- 
tion and terror was utterly false. Men would have very 
much more joy if they were simply to lead such a life as 
would make them happy here and now, and have a sweet 
hope and trust concerning what they could not know. 

But we discover that this scheme of salvation is not 
a gospel to men, because it is not founded on facts. 
Anything to be a gospel must be true. I do not assert, 
of course, that men who profess to uphold this scheme 
never tell any truth to men. There are certain general 
moral and religious truths which are always true, and 
which good men under any technical belief may inci- 
dentally teach. But the u scheme" of supernaturalism 
has no basis of truth. The book from which it draws 
its authority is not infallible, there is no historical proof 
for its miracles, its god is the creation of the human 
imagination, its devil is only a fallen god of theological 
fiction, its heaven and hell have been made out of the 
consciousness of good and evil in men, and do not exist 
as places. Its salvation, too, is unscientific and false. 
By saying that it is unscientific, I mean that it is not in 
consistency with well-proved laws and principles, but is 
purely fictitious. Its atonements do not touch the real 
evils in society, which are the results of imperfect or- 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 305 

ganisms, unscientific social and political and physical 
conditions, and false ideas. Its "sin" does not mean any- 
natural evil or wickedness, but a metaphysical abstrac- 
tion that human fear has set up between man and his 
god : it presupposes that the moral man, or man who is 
obeying natural law, needs converting or turning from 
his present course as much as the immoral man. Its 
Saviour is a dogmatic Christ of churchly scholasticism 
w r ho is to influence Deity, and who never existed in his- 
tory. Its prayers for the suspensions of physical and 
spiritual laws are founded on a theory of the govern- 
ment of the universe which is now known to be false, 
and have therefore never been answered. The whole 
system, therefore, as a system, is false: it is not a gos- 
pel to men ; and it only has any meaning to the men 
of our age, so far as it gives up its claims of supernat- 
uralism, and accepts rationalism and natural morality 
and religion. 

But just here arises an insurmountable obstacle. The 
gospel of supernaturalism has been supposed to be a per- 
fectly revealed system of truth. When it begins to throw 
aside its perfection and to take in modern rationalism, 
therefore, it ceases to be that perfect system or gospel. 
In other words, it ceases to be itself. If it is perfect, 
it has no logical right to improve. The trouble just now 
with what is called our modern gospel is that it has no 
consistent principle to proclaim to men. A gospel must 
be a gospel about something. It must have some prin- 
ciple which can be stated in the form of a proposition. 
We have seen that there are certain theories in society 
which are still held by millions of people which are 
called a gospel, but which are in fact the saddest mes- 



306 TUE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

sages to men. But, although different dogmas are held 
by different people, it is difficult to obtain a statement 
to-day of what is an essential principle. We cannot 
well accept this modern gospel, when its defenders can- 
not agree as to what it is in essence. Of course, in un- 
folding any principle, men might differ on many details 
and still preserve essential unity ; but the theological 
differences of this age are fundamental. Some men 
say that the "gospel" is a message which, if acce] 
will save men from hell; but Prof. Newman Smyth, 
who has recently been elected professor at Andover, is 
not certain about hell. Of course, it may be replied that 
at least it is necessary to save men from evil ; but any 
rationalist will say that, and therefore there is no spe- 
cial gospel about a deliverance on the subject. Others 
tell us that the gospel is the proclamation of Christ to 
men, and that Christ is the test and standard of every- 
thing. But The Independent declares that it is not safe 
to begin with Christ, that there can be no supernatural 
Christ without the miracles, and does not accept the 
Christocentric theory of Prof. Stearns and The Con- 
gregationalist. Some tell us that belief is everything, 
but others declare that not belief, but obedience, is the 
crucial action on the part of men. The gospel is in 
the Bible, others tell us; but Prof. Fisher writes of 
the "gradualness" of the Bible revelation, and we 
would therefore have to know just at what step in the 
gradation infallibility begins. Logical men would like 
to know what a gospel is before they accept it. The in- 
definiteness of a certain kind of liberalism cannot be a 
go?pel to men, because it has no consistent principle. 
Nothing is more worthless than a pretended message 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 307 

which is not founded on anything but sentiment, which 
cannot be defined, and which directs to no conclusion. 
Much of this modern talk about a gospel of "Jesus 
only " is utterly meaningless. What is Jesus expected 
to do, — to save men from hell or to save them from evil 
by education? Besides, whom do men mean by Jesus? 
Do they mean the mysterious, indefinite character who 
is no more proved a Christ by miracles, or do they 
mean a supernatural Jesus ? Do they mean the Christ 
of dogma, or the Jesus of history who was a mere man 
and is to be judged like other men? It sounds pious to 
some people, of course, to talk about a gospel of " Jesus 
only " ; but until there can be some agreement as to 
what Jesus is meant, and what he is expected to do, and 
from what and how he is to save men, it is only a 
" gospel sowid" but not a principle of belief or action 
of any kind. Much of the " gospel " of our day might 
very properly be called the doctrine of holy ambiguity. 
The principal agreement consists in a condemnation of 
those who do not accept it, but not in stating what it is 
that men are to accept. 

Take the single question of morals as an example. 
Men are told to be virtuous, but they are not very gen- 
erally told what virtue is or what is its standard or 
source. It is of no consequence to tell men to accept 
the morality of the Bible, because there are different 
kinds of morality in the Bible, the Old Testament radi- 
cally differing from the ISTew Testament. It will hardly 
do to assert that morals are founded on the intuitions of 
men divinely implanted, as men who profess to follow 
their intuitions come to such widely different moral con- 
clusions. But, practically, the only unity those have who 



308 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

to-day found morals on traditional beliefs, in any sense, 
is in their criticism of science. Many moral teachers 
spend very much of their time trying to show the dan- 
ger of the evolution theory of morals. Just at present, 
the central point of attack is Herbert Spencer's Data of 
Ethics, the latest philosophical explanation of natural 
morality ; and, on the whole, perhaps the best book on 
that subject ever written. This is no time to enter 
into a defence of any one man, and a gospel of natural 
law does not depend upon perfection in the philosophy 
of any single writer. But the point to which I wish to 
call your attention here, and one which is quite manifest 
to any one who seriously desires to find some consist- 
ent theory of morals, is that those who criticise modern 
science and believe in tradition have nothing positive to 
give men as a gospel of morality. When they give us 
some system or statement that will not be self-contra- 
dictory, we may be forced to accept it. In the mean 
time, terrible prophesyings concerning the danger to 
life that will follow if men accept a morality of science, 
and quotations from mythology and outgrown philoso- 
phies, will hardly do for a gospel to the active, thought- 
ful men of our age. 

There are at least two positive reasons why we are 
forced to find some general principle for our moral 
guidance. One is that this popular gospel is not in con- 
sistency with scientific truth. Science simply means 
systematized knowledge in the general departments of 
human investigation. There can be no true gospel sepa- 
rate from facts. Apologists do not profess to deny that 
Lubbock and Maine and Helmholtz and Tylor and Dar- 
win in their own several departments give essential facts, 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 309 

but still we are informed that science is opposed to the 
gospel. As, however, no honest and intellectual man 
denies that the best investigators in their own depart- 
ments are trustworthy, what is called the gospel must 
therefore be contrary to the best proved facts. What, 
therefore, is a " gospel " worth, which opposes the best 
thought of the age or tries to ignore it? Of course, our 
modern thinkers and investigators are only fallible, but 
surely the men of a past age were not superhuman ; and 
it is at least probable that the conclusions of men who 
not only have all the knowledge of the past, but also of 
the present, and conclusions which are accepted every- 
where else, cannot be honestly rejected or ignored by the 
Church. A true gospel must be founded on facts, and 
not on mythology. As the old one is not founded on 
facts, there is a demand for a new gospel. 

Again, a different gospel is necessary, because the old 
one is no more heartily accepted by the thoughtful men 
of our age. Of course, as I have said, thousands of men 
nominally accept the old faith. The most intellectual 
men of our age, however, do not accept it. Many men 
may of course have a great deal of knowledge in cer- 
tain directions, and still accept conservative theology. 
But there was never a more superficial method of sup- 
porting a decaying theology than to quote the opinion 
of some politician or statesman in the past, whose inves- 
tigations have been in an entirely different direction. 
Some man in the past may have made a very successful 
general ; but, unless he gave especial attention to funda- 
mental moral questions, he can hardly be taken for au- 
thority to-day on theology. It is really amusing to see 
the quotations from some politician of fifty years ago, 



310 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

in behalf of exploded theories, — some man, too, per- 
haps, who did not through his life show a Btrong 
enough belief in the faith to even accept it as a princi- 
ple of guidance in his public life. Men, too, to-day, may 
be crammed with very much transcendental and mys- 
tical lore, and yet not be strongly intellectual. The 
mind, like the body, may be crammed with so much 
undigested material as to destroy its real power; and 
many men have a great many facts without being able 
to perceive what conclusions grow logically out of them. 
There are not more than three or four prominent scien- 
tific thinkers in America who accept the old theology, 
and perhaps not one poet of national reputation accepts 
Orthodoxy. 

The author of Hocks Ahead has shown that in Eng- 
land the intellect of the nation is not in harmony with 
the nation's creed. Social and political reasons make 
many men nominal supporters, who do not really believe. 
In this country, the masses of believers who honestly 
accept the old faith have done so without any personal 
investigation, and because they think there can be no 
morality or religion separate from it. Some men, too, 
go back to an old settled faith, because they have not 
enough moral or intellectual power to form their own 
conclusions, and think it easier to accept what other 
men say is settled. Many men and women adhere to 
the Church, because of their love of art and music and 
sentiment. That the majority of active business and 
professional men do not believe the old gospel is evi- 
dent from the fact that they are not church-members. 
If they were hearty believers in it, they would not only 
support the Church financially, but would openly profess 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 311 

its faith. Men often pay pew-rent to please their wives, 
just as they would please them in any whim, but with 
no deep convictions of their own. Others support the 
Church, because they want their children to have some 
place of moral instruction, and at present they think there 
is nothing better. Hundreds of men nominally support 
the Church for social and political reasons, and because 
it will give them influence. A man who is a candidate 
for public office knows that, while the masses of men are 
governed by their prejudices rather than their reason, it 
will pay them to flatter the old theology. But there is 
no mathematical jugglery that can change the fact that 
the Church is making few converts among intelligent 
men. It was an orthodox minister in Maine who said, 
substantially, at an installation service, that he hoped 
the new pastor would try to get some men into his 
church, and not try to swell the statistics by forcing in 
women and four and six year old children, as is so often 
done. The religious papers are continually mourning 
over the fact that the Church is making few converts. 
But, if the strongest and most intellectual men and 
women of the age are not accepting heartily the old 
faith, it is proof that there is a necessity for some- 
thing else. The moral life of men cannot be developed, 
unless it is in consistency with the highest intelligence 
and best thought of the age. A half-belief soon changes 
into a make-believe; and, for any man who will closely 
observe our church life there will come a consciousness 
that there is too much insincerity and policy and indefi- 
niteness and half-heartedness to make the present gospel 
an aid in creating heroic and honest and genuine men. 
There is, therefore, a necessity for a new gospel. 



312 Tin: gospel of law. 

What, then, are we to have for a fundamental princi- 
ple? The gospel which seems to me to be the only real 
one for our age, and for the future, is the Gospel of Law. 
In using such a term, I do not use it to the exclusion of 
other terms which are in many respects synonymous, or 
with any idea that it is more comprehensive than some 
others, but because it seems to me to contain the essence 
of that which must be the basis of any moral teaching. 

Let me explain what I mean by the word "law." 
There are many people who think, when they hear the 
word, that it means the commandment of some person 
or the enactment of a legislative body. But, although 
the word is often legitimately used in such a manner, it 
also has a deeper meaning. Mr. Spencer defines it as 
the uniformity of relations among phenomena. One of 
the best explanations of the true meaning of the word 
is that of George Henry Lewes. Law simply means the 
process of phenomena. We observe that phenomena 
coexist and succeed each other in a regular manner, and 
we call that process a law. A law of nature is simply 
the method of nature. We observe a certain " order of 
sequence among certain phenomena," and we call it the 
law of those phenomena. We observe, for example, 
that the horse seeks food at certain periods ; and we call 
that conduct a law of his nature. It is simply a name 
given for certain uniform actions or phenomena. There 
is very much misconception, not only among believers 
in miracles, but even among progressive thinkers, in re- 
gard to natural law. We often hear it said that science 
makes law its god, as if law were considered a power 
controlling events. Others say that law controls the 
universe, as if law were a force or entity separate from 



, 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 313 

phenomena. Law, however, is simply a convenient con- 
ception of the human mind, or a name to express how 
things are or act. We notice certain processes, and we 
imagine that there is some law that forces the process. 
There are certain causes and conditions which create 
certain results, and the process is the law. In general, 
not law as an entity, but the universe, causes men and 
animals to be or to act ; and that process we call, for 
convenience, a law. The fundamental conception under 
this theory of law is simply, therefore, that this is a 
universe of cause and effect, and that, when certain 
causes and conditions exist, certain effects will follow. 
These causes and conditions are already in phenomena 
too, and nothing is ever miraculously put into them. 

There is therefore no foundation for the common 
criticism that a belief in universal law leads to fatalism. 
"Fatalism says that something must be," but necessity 
says simply that something is. It is not a law that 
makes the horse seek food: it is hunger • but, when 
that hunger uniformly produces certain conduct, we 
name the uniformity a law. Law, therefore, is not a 
god, a force separate from phenomena; but all phe- 
nomena exist and succeed each other in consistency with 
certain causes and conditions inherent in the constitu- 
tion of the universe. Practically, therefore, when we 
say this is a universe of law, we mean that certain 
causes which now inhere in the universe uniformly pro- 
duce certain results. When there are results we cannot 
understand, it simply proves that we do not yet know 
all the causes and conditions. Without stopping, there- 
fore, to explain at each point, w T hen I call this a universe 
of law, I mean that it is a universe where certain results 



314 • THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

invariably follow from certain causes and conditions 
which are now at least potentially in the constitution 
of things. 

This is a new gospel, — not in the sense that no man 
ever proclaimed a law in the universe until this age, — 
but that such a principle was never before made the 
foundation for a gospel. Some men in the past recog- 
nized the principle of law; but it has been supposed by 
those who pretended to have a gospel that it must be 
founded on some suspension of that law. It has re- 
mained for our age to try to build a gospel directly 
upon the law revealed by science. 

All sane men believe now that, in all ordinary matters, 
certain natural causes will produce certain effects. For 
instance, no man expects wheat to grow from barley or 
figs to grow from thistles. All the facts prove more- 
over that there is no exception to this principle any- 
where in the universe or in any department of life. 
The question as to the existence of a Deity is not at all 
affected by this principle. Whatever divine power 
exists is in the universe, and is never put into it. We 
know of nothing outside the universe. There are mys- 
teries in the universe, and the greatest mystery is often 
in the uniformity of cause and effect. We do not know, 
for instance, how food taken into the body will make 
men think, or how brain and thought are connected. 
What we do know is that they are connected in a uni- 
form manner. Man is a mystery, whose nature cannot 
be wholly understood ; but no special man is a special 
mystery. Every babe is a mystery; but the babe Gau- 
tama or the babe Jesus is not outside the regular law? 
of sequence. We may not always know all the causes 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 315 

or conditions; but, if we did, we would discover that 
there are natural reasons for the production of all men 
of genius. Heredity, organism, education, race tenden- 
cies, and political and moral and physical surroundings 
are natural causes of a Jesus as much as of a Confucius. 
Many persons acknowledge the principle of law every- 
where except in humanity. But leaving out the ultimate 
mystery which no man can fathom, and acknowledging 
that we do not yet know all the causes of genius, man is 
just as much a creature of law as nature or animals, and 
is in fact a product of nature. Certain great men have 
undoubtedly influenced humanity to a great degree, and 
have themselves become new causes ; but they were 
themselves caused by influences that preceded or sur- 
rounded them. The mystery of manhood in general 
may be acknowledged, but Jesus was just as naturally 
caused by Jewish and other Oriental influences as was 
Marcus Aurelius by Roman civilization. No single man 
was ever so absolutely above his fellows as to be a mir- 
acle. A man seven feet high may seem a prodigy; but, 
as there are many men six feet and eleven inches in 
height, we do not need to presuppose a miracle. The 
fact is that everywhere certain natural causes are pro- 
ducing certain natural effects. If we do not understand 
everything to-day, it is simply because of our ignorance; 
and, according to all history, the sphere of the special 
has been gradually limited and the sphere of the nat- 
ural has been enlarged, until we can believe that at last 
natural law will be recognized everywhere. 

But men assert that a gospel of law is harsh and 
cruel. Is it a gospel? In the first place, it must be a 
gospel, if it is true. Nothing is good that is not in con- 



316 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

sistency with the facts of the universe, as we have no 
standard of goodness except the universe. Moreover, 
it is a poor reverence men pay the universe, when they 
say its laws are cruel. Men sometimes in their prayers 
and sermons thank their god that the world is not gov- 
erned by laws which would be blind and cruel. This 
is, however, rather a severe criticism upon their god. 
They pretend to believe in a personal god who created 
the world and gave it certain laws. Then, they turn 
about and insult their god by saying his laws are cruel. 
But unless there is some power in the universe greater 
than God, he must be in the laws. To call the laws 
cruel is therefore to call him either immoral or weak. 
The whole of the popular gospel, however, is founded 
on the theory that the god is malicious and cruel. 
Either the laws are cruel by which he governs the 
universe, and he has to be continually suspending them, 
or else Jesus is set up as a mediator to appease him. 
In either case, he himself is represented as having a 
very poor moral character. 

But the gospel of law is a gospel of faith and hope. 
Multitudes of men to-day are utterly faithless. Many 
are full of credulity and fear, but not of faith. Many 
are so faithless that they think, if the truth were known 
about their theology and their Bible, society would go 
into moral chaos. Science may be true, but it will not 
be safe to let men know its teachings and apply it to 
their theology. God and the universe cannot be trusted ; 
and so the crowd must be kept respectable by a devil 
and a fear of hell, whether real or not. If men should 
find out how things are once, everything would go to 
eternal ruin. Men cannot be trusted with facts. This 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 317 

is the infidelity of the old gospel. The faith of the be- 
liever in the gospel of law, however, is deep and perfect. 
Everything works according to a certain law of cause 
and effect. There is no suspension of law, there are no 
fiats. We can study with a faith that the universe can 
be trusted ; we are not afraid to find out facts, because 
w r e believe that the facts are safe. We are not afraid 
that morality will cease, because we believe that the 
universe itself has at last produced men with a nature 
that demands morality. We believe that religion is a 
reality, because the mighty forces of this universe, acting 
on man's nature, has made him a creature of aspiration. 
We can enter upon certain moral reforms, because we 
are sure that, when we set certain causes in motion, they 
will invariably produce certain effects. Our faith, too, 
is strong and vigorous, and in exact consistency with the 
best intellectual development of men. It is often said 
by believers in the old gospel that at the hour of death 
men will feel the necessity of accepting their faith. But 
it is a poor compliment to a faith that men should accept 
it at the hour when they may be physically and intel- 
lectually weak, and not in their power and vigor. The 
gospel of law can be accepted by the strongest men in 
their best hours, and not merely when their brain has 
ceased to do its best work. We have a deep faith even 
in the hour of death, because we know that this uni- 
verse is moving right on in a regular manner in consist- 
ency with certain principles; and, after we have done 
all we can, we can lie down in perfect confidence that 
all is well, that there can be no accidents, and that in 
any other world or other life we cannot drift away from 
the eternal law. 



318 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

The gospel of law is that men must bring themselves 
into harmony with certain natural and immutable laws, 
and that by obedience to these laws they will be saved. 
Whosoever lives up to the laws of the universe and of 
his whole nature will be saved. 

Practically, let us sum up all church doctrines in con- 
sistency with this principle. We have, for an ultimate 
reality, a divine power, which is ever manifesting itself 
in consistency with regular law. Whether we call that 
power a stream of tendency or a Cosmic Deity, we feel 
ourselves just as much bound to submit to it in loyal 
obedience, and just as sure that in obedience to it we 
will be on the side of the real Eternal which makes for 
righteousness, as the man who talks in traditional lan- 
guage. Moreover, we can follow our emotional nature 
in calling that reality by what name we please, so we 
practically recognize that it only works through regular 
law. On the subjective side, too, we cherish all those 
emotions and aspirations and ideals which, according 
to the law of evolution, have at last been produced in 
us by the universe. We have a real Infinite, too, which 
reveals itself in every flower and blade of grass and 
thrill of love and impulse of heroism and aspiration. 
We know nothing of "brute matter" and "cruel laws," 
because this universe in every part and particle, and 
every atom and molecule, is all alive with mystery 
and meaning. We can use one book and all books 
with a clear understanding of their value, because we 
know they all grew, as the grass grows, in consistency 
with natural law, and contain the expression of the 
emotion and thought of men in a particular age. We 
tremble before no miracle, because all life is a mystery; 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 319 

and the greatest mystery is in natural law. Satan and 
sin and hell are to us personified conceptions of wrong 
and its penalties, and of maladjustment. Our predesti- 
nation is that jertain causes of heredity and condition 
and conduct invariably produce certain effects. Our 
faith is not a mysterious something implanted in the 
soul by magic, liable to be lost any time before death, 
not an amulet, — "now you have it, and now you've 
lost it," — but is the natural result of intelligence. After 
discovering that there are certain facts and laws in the 
universe, we naturally have a feeling that all is well, and 
either in life or death we have no doubt, but can rest 
ourselves in perfect confidence on the eternal law and 
power. The gospel of law demands no conversion, and 
wants none, on the part of the moral man. It only 
demands that he shall keep right on in upholding nat- 
ural and universal law. The only conversion there is is 
that the man who is doing wrong should turn around 
and begin doing right. Even he cannot be completely 
changed in a moment; but he can begin to change, 
and he can cultivate new habits and place himself under 
new influences, until his nature will be modified in con- 
sistency with natural laws. There can be no salvation 
except in obeying the laws of the universe. Somebody 
must suffer, whenever any natural law is broken. 

George Eliot is often condemned, because it is said 
her writings are so dark and hopeless. The fact is that 
sentimentalists condemn her because she tells the exact 
truth, that there is no escape from the consequences 
of certain conduct. She preaches the real gospel, and 
tells men the good news that there is blessing in obe- 
dience. As she makes one of her own characters say : 



320 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

"I hate that talk o' people, as if there was a way o' 
making amends for everything. They'd more need be 
brought to see as the wrong they do can never be 
altered. When a man's spoiled his fellow-creatur's life, 
he's no right to comfort himself with thinking good 
may come out of it. Somebody else's good doesn't alter 
her shame and misery." 

No prayer either can change the natural consequences 
of certain facts. 

" No diver brings up love again 

Dropped once, my beautiful FeUise, 
In such cold seas. 



"Are the skies wet because we weep, 
Or fair because of any mirth ? 
Cry out ; they are gods ; perchance they sleep ; 
Cry; thou shalt know what prayers are worth, 
Thou dust and earth. 

" Can ye beat off one wave with prayer, 
Can ye move mountains ? bid the flower 
Take flight and turn to a bird in the air ? 
Can ye hold fast for shine or shower 
One wingless hour ? 

"Ah, sweet, and we too, can we bring 
One sigh back, bid one smile revive ? 
Can God restore one ruined thing, 
Or he who slays our souls alive 
Make dead things thrive ? " 

No one can ever estimate how much human wretched- 
ness is caused by the theory that, by a fiat or an atone- 
ment, heartache and ruin and wretchedness can be 
repaired. The real gospel of law is that men may be 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 321 

% 

blessed by obeying the laws of their own physical and 
mental and moral nature. Any salvation, therefore, 
must be something natural and in consistency with cause 
and effect. Jesus is a saviour to us just so far as his 
teachings and example lead us to live up to moral law, 
and to repair as far as possible any wrong we have done. 
On the subject of immortality, the gospel of law is 
good news, at least thus far : that it destroys all belief in 
any arbitrary heavens and hells, and leaves no portion of 
the race in hopeless misery. We know at least that, in 
some sense, all that is real in us will, by a regular law, 
exist forever. We know, too, that our future depends 
upon no whims, not even upon our poor theories, but is 
already essentially settled in the constitution of the uni- 
verse. We have all the hope there is; and it is a natural 
hope, produced by the universe itself in our nature, and 
is not founded on uncertain miracles or doubtful proof- 
texts. Moreover, it is a pure, human, noble hope, a 
hope not for ourselves only, but for all who have ever 
reached consciousness and have felt the craving for a 
larger, deeper life. 

We have, too, a fixed, consistent principle. There 
have never been any suspensions of the law of natural 
cause and effect. Prof. Townsend's assumption that, 
according to science itself, the creation of the world 
was contrary to the " established constitution of things," 
is in direct contradiction to facts and to the teachings of 
the best proved modern science. The preparation of a 
world which has at last produced vegetable and animal 
life was not contrary to, but only a development of, 
what had preceded ; and it was in exact consistency with 
the existing constitution of things that, by a law of 



322 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

evolution, higher forms of life should appear. A mira- 
cle is no more needed between a chaos and a cosmos 
than between the snow-covered rose-bush and the June 
rose. Mystery there was and is, but no miracle. 

Practically there is no good news for men, except that 
of natural law. Men w^ill succeed in any department 
just so far as and no farther than they bring themselves 
into harmony w T ith the universe. It is reported that 
when Lincoln was once asked, if he did not desire to 
have God on his side, he said in substance that he did 
not, but he would like to be on God's side. No atone- 
ment nor fiat will ever make water run up hill. Rivers 
do not go out of their w r ay to run past large cities, but 
men must build their cities beside the rivers. The uni- 
verse is moving right onward in consistency with a 
regular law. If we would reach the haven of success, 
we must jump aboard. The powers are here : we must 
use them, and put ourselves into harmony with them. 
We must plant our mills where the current runs. The 
stars never stop in their courses. As Mr. Emerson says, 
if you want to succeed, you must " hitch your wagon to 
a star. No god will help : we shall find all their teams 
going the other w T ay, — Charles' Wain, Great Bear, Orion, 
Leo, Hercules." Use the forces in the universe. Do 
not expect them to change for you. No God is angry, 
but the universe is inexorable. We all play a game 
against unseen forces, and no false move can ever be 
taken back. When your card is down, it must stay. 
Destroy your digestion, and it is gone. Injure your 
mind, and there is no remedy. 

Here is the law of love. Obey the laws of the uni- 
verse, and there is everlasting salvation, because there 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 323 

are no whims or fiats to bring to naught your hopes. 
This gospel declares inexorably that evil conduct cannot 
absolutely be remedied. But it has, too, a positive 
declaration. A man who lives out the laws of his being 
shall be blessed. His healthful organism will invariably 
be a reserve force to his children. When he sets in 
motion certain causes and influences, they are, in the 
nature of things, bound to effect some good. As men 
become more intelligent, they will see the immutability 
of natural laws. Gradually, they will seek to obey those 
laws, and new feelings and new tendencies will be 
created in the race. Without at all proclaiming any 
immediate millennium, it is easy even now to see how a 
large proportion of the ills which make men suffer can 
be removed. Without attempting any catalogue, it is 
not difficult to suggest a condition of comparative happi- 
ness, if men would only observe facts instead of trusting 
in mystical salvations. In the first place, it is possible to 
relieve to a large degree the miseries of the unfortunate. 
It is also in the power of men to prevent shipwrecks, 
railroad disasters, the burning of theatres, contagions 
and epidemics, the propagation of idiots and criminals 
and men with a ruined physical organism. It is abso- 
lutely within the power of men to abolish war and pov- 
erty, nearly every form of death itself, except that of 
natural old age, which, in a world once freed from super- 
stition, might seem as fitting a termination to a deep 
natural life as the falling of the leaves in autumn after 
the gathering of the golden fruitage. We can see, too, 
that by the propagation of truth and the destruction of 
old terrors and superstitions founded on ignorance, along 
with sweeter manners, pure music, and the cultivation of 

i 



324 THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 

aspirations and deeper human sympathies, there might 
be, not many generations hence, a relatively perfect 
religious life and hope. 

But a belief in natural law will keep us from expecting 
too much in our day. We must all do the best we can, 
but it is according to that law that everything cannot 
change in a moment. Science cannot change the organ- 
isms and tendencies of ages by merely propagating its 
truths. It is according to natural law that institutions 
and beliefs cannot change any faster than men have the 
capacity for something better, and men can only change 
by natural processes. Each of us must, in very honesty, 
utter our truth ; but we also know that all men cannot, 
in an hour, receive this truth. This fact, too, has its ele- 
ment of safety. We know there cannot be any moral 
interregnum, therefore, because in the nature of things 
men cannot so suddenly give up an old belief as to have 
no rule of life. But we can utter our truth with per- 
fect confidence that it must result in good. Practically, 
too, we see a necessity for uttering it, because among 
the children of Protestants at least, when the present 
teachers, who depend on ignorance and authority, pass 
away as they must in a few years, they will have com- 
paratively few successors. The younger generation, 
growing up in the scientific atmosphere, which Lecky 
proves to be the indirect cause of the scepticism and 
best spirit of our age, will demand a reason for their 
morals and religion. 

This fact is closely allied to one of some practical 
importance. We are all children of the past ; and we 
cannot, if we would, cut ourselves off from our parent- 
age. That past developed a certain moral and religious 



THE GOSPEL OF LAW. 325 

sentiment. It is our mission to take up that sentiment, 
and guide it in consistency with what we now know to 
be truth. The sentiment of the past brought into exist- 
ence an institution called the Church. That institution 
has often been used to enslave the human mind and to 
destroy natural human happiness. But it was neverthe- 
less the organization which was created by the moral 
and religious sentiment, however perverted. The Church 
is simply the organization which stands for the moral 
and religious life of any age. If it is used in an injuri- 
ous manner, it nevertheless is a natural result of the 
thought and aspirations of that age. Will the gospel 
of law or reason have its church? I not only believe 
that the rationalist has a right to use any organization 
he finds for the good of men, but, as long as men are 
as they are, some organization is necessary. The Church 
of the Future may not be called by that name, but some- 
thing like it must exist. Moreover, we need give no 
account of our stewardship to men who are false to what 
we now know to be truth. The real Church of any age 
is the organization which stands for the highest truth 
and best moral sentiment and highest ideals, no matter 
if it denies every dogma on which the Church of the 
Past was builded. Call the organization what we will, 
reason, too, will build its altars and have its communion 
of kindred spirits. Its church will demand no accept- 
ance of dogmas on speculative questions. It will have 
no priests, but will have teachers who have been set 
apart by living men, because of their logical minds, their 
intelligence, their human sympathies, their sincerity, and 
their devotion to ideals and facts. Its supporters will 
commune with each other in their thought and sympa- 
thy, while each man will /frame his own language by 



326 THE G08PEL OF LAW. 

which to express his belief in regard to mysteries. It 
will be simply an organization in which men will band 
together to study truth, to bring moral aid to society, 
and to cultivate deeper aspirations and purer human 
sympathies, with no authority but facts, and no test but 
character. It must and it will have, too, such music and 
art and picture and poetry as the Church of the Past 
has never known. 

But we have a prophecy of such a Church even in 
the present. Already, men have begun to feel their 
manhood, to understand the unproved assumptions of a 
Church of authority, to comprehend their right to have 
the latest and best thought and their freedom in sup- 
porting that which is true to them; and already, there- 
fore, the Church of the Future exists. There have 
never been such ideality and moral vigor and joy and 
conscientiousness and enthusiasm as are now in a few 
organizations which stand for facts, for sincerity, for 
ethics, and which build upon a belief in natural law for 
a basis. As supporters of such an organization, we have, 
for a working basis, a belief in universal law. We can 
be sure that conduct which is in consistency with such 
a principle must be good, and that every hope and aspi- 
ration which has had a natural cause must have some 
deep meaning. We can therefore say with Shelley : — 

" We know not where we go, or what sweet dream 
May pilot us through caverns strange and fair 
Of far and pathless passion; while the stream of life 
Our bark doth on its whirlpools bear, 
Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air. 
Nor should we seek to know ; so the devotion 
Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there, 
Louder and louder from the utmost ocean 
Of universal life, attuning its commotion." 



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